Catch and Release
by AcrossTheOcean
Summary: It doesn't take much to catch someone. Axel catches Roxas' eye, and then Axel catches...well, Roxas. And since neither one is quite ready to release the other...you get the picture. Happy AkuRoku Day 2011! Rated M.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Happy Axel and Roxas Day! We had this sitting around before we had a suddenly brilliant idea to submit this for 8/13. Hope you enjoy it:D There will be three chapters, but not yet sure when they'll be uploaded. Reviews always motivate us though *wink wink***

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><p><strong>Roxas<strong>

"Godammit," I muttered and clenched my fists as I glared at the workers who were in the process of moving and setting up the different brightly colored tents. They were walking way too close to my slackwire. The poles were thrust into the ground with precision just for me and the clumsy workers had so far managed to bump into them at least three times. Not too big of a deal normally, but I was trying to improve my freaking juggling here.

Why were they even going this way? They clearly had more room around the other side of the vans and yet they chose to walk over here. Assholes. Clearing my mind, I tried to _fucking_ juggle the _fucking_ rings again. This was not part of what I normally did, mostly I did tumbling and acrobatics on the wire, but I'd been learning how to juggle from Stefan and he'd mentioned I should try flinging things in the air while walking the wire.

So I'd set up my slackwire, as it was easier to set up than a tightwire and not far enough off the ground to do serious damage, and was dutifully practicing. It wasn't so bad, I didn't have a performance tonight so I didn't have to worry about getting too exhausted.

Not that _I _would get too exhausted. No, I'd been doing this for most of my life, being with this specific company since I was twelve with my parents. They were retired now, living comfortably in the countryside, often times boarding some of the horses or dogs that the circus used. Everyone loved them. Grinning as I finally managed to catch the last ring as I finished the walk, I took the bow that I always took, regardless of having no one around to appreciate me.

"Roxas! Come on, new recruits!" I heard Stefan shout and I quickly dismounted and dropped the rings onto the grass beside the X-shaped poles holding up the ends of the slackwire. New recruits? Since when had we been adding acts all of a sudden? I hadn't heard anything about a search and I was pretty much always in the know. Scowling, I turned a few cartwheels, ending in a hand spring just to stay limber and headed over to the big tent, as that was really the only place we could fit right now.

Pushing through the curtains and into the tent, I let my eyes wander around hoping to catch this new act. The tent was rather large, had to be to fit an audience and the act itself if they were big, like my tightroping counted as, or the ones that included multiple performers. We weren't a huge company, but big enough to support ourselves reasonably well. I loved it here. They were family. Stefan's family had put this company together years ago and it seemed like every person he added to it, just ending up clicking perfectly. So, despite my original annoyance at this abrupt addition, I was intrigued and hopeful. Pushing to the front, I was still pretty short dammit, I saw Stefan standing there with...what the hell?

One man in torn jeans and a simple button up black shirt with a werewolf mask, and standing opposite from him was a man of about the same height, wearing jeans also and a flashing red hoody, his face covered in make up to make him look like a zombie... Well that was clearly Leila's work, our makeup artist. She had a thing for the gore and she'd done an outstanding job on the new guy. She'd probably made the mask as well.

Behind each of them stood large wooden panels, planted into the ground, and from what I could see, they'd been used before as they looked somewhat battered. Knife throwing... Both of them wore belts low around their hips, each of those belts carrying about twenty knives from what I could tell, all different sizes and shapes. They each had a leather sheet, which I assumed was so the sharp knives wouldn't poke into their thighs. Knife throwing acts could be impressive, but I sure hoped there was more to them as we tried to stay original in this company.

"Okay, everybody. This is Reno," he pointed to the zombie, "and his twin, Axel." he pointed at the werewolf. "I'd like to welcome them to the company and as such, I'd like everyone to give them their full attention while they perform the act that got them this sweet deal." Clapping his hands together, making us all start clapping, he stepped off to the side and motioned for them to start.

The zombie named Reno pulled a knife out of his belt and willy-nilly threw it straight at his twin werewolf named Axel, who jumped aside, looking over his shoulder at the knife now nailed into the wooden board and then back at his twin.

"Reno? The fuck? Put the music on, dude."

"Sorry, yo." The Reno zombie muttered. "We're being stared at by pros. Kinda hard to concentrate."

"Well, you're gonna have to because last time you didn't pay attention you nearly cut off my thumb." The Axel werewolf growled. Hmm, either this was part of the act, or they were amateurs. But, I'd been impressed already with the dodge by, um, Axel so I crossed my arms and waited for them to continue. Not all of us had the best introductions. I remember the girl who did horse tricks had been bucked off and landed in horse shit during her introduction. Still, she'd done well, and was now a main attraction.

Fishing a remote out of his back pocket, Reno clicked a button and the music started. 'Heads will roll' by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Fitting. While the music took off, both twins pulled out three knives, started juggling with them, making it seem like there was nothing to it. Reno then threw one of the knives straight at Axel's head, who then moved only his upper body to the side to avoid the knife, his own knives clattering down to the floor.

As he slowly straightened back up, staring intensely at Reno from behind his mask, Reno continued to juggle the two remaining knives, throwing them high up in the air then. Pushing off his feet, he caught both by their sharp ends between his fingers and then flung them at Axel's feet.

It had looked as if Axel was going to fall backwards, but he pretty much defied gravity as he stretched his arms out, letting his entire body rest on the heels of his feet, having lifted the fronts up in the air to make space for the knives that were now nailed into the ground.

Licking my lips in anticipation now, I leaned forward, loving this act already. It was one thing to throw knives at a stationary object, quite another to throw one at your brother who was moving. Axel took a couple of acted stumbled steps back, propping his hands on his hips, eyes still fixed on Reno who was pulling out two more knives from his belt. He was doing it slowly, and I could see Axel's chest heave, making clear he was acting to be annoyed at his twin's slow pace. Tapping his foot to the rhythm of the music, his arms relaxed before he started to sway his hips left and right.

And after a few seconds of that simple move, Axel then started to dance full out, using all the space his side of the stage had to offer. He was spinning, doing small sidesteps with his feet, his arms sometimes flung around and he both jumped up into the air and circled down. It was clear this dude liked to dance and was good at it too. A knife was launched then, but Axel didn't falter nor stopped dancing, continuing on while Reno threw another. While Reno had to have perfect aim, Axel's dance steps made clear he was doing some avoiding as well.

Reno then pulled three more knives out of his belt, and while he did this, Axel swept down to the floor, picking up two of the knives he'd let clatter down to the floor earlier. Still dancing, he flung one at Reno, who jumped up and avoided it, the knife now nailed into the wooden board behind him.

Looking up, the zombie looked surprised and then threw another at Axel, who danced out of its way before throwing the second at Reno. He let his body drop backwards, missing the knife by a couple of inches and when it was stuck into the wood, Reno lifted his body easily off the ground again and then he too started dancing.

And that's where the pace picked up even faster, leading me to be staring at a scene where a werewolf and a zombie were dancing, all the while 'battling' each other by flinging knives at one another at such a fast pace, I'm not quite sure how they had the time to avoid, concentrate, aim, throw and then avoid again.

There was jumping, sidestepping, flipping backwards... both keeping on dancing and throwing knives until they had no more knives left to throw, and that's when the song ended, both their bodies purposely collapsing to the floor, calling it quits.

I cheered and clapped along with the rest of the company, grinning. Stefan was clapping as well, going up and giving them each a hands up. "Huh? Right? Do I know how to pick'em or what? Boys, if you are still for it, then go talk to the Bro over there and he will get you set up with everything you need, plus your contracts. The rest of you." He turned and gave us the Stefan eye, supposed to be scary but more than anything just creepy. "Get going! Practice, practice, practice!" He waved us away and as the rest of the group emptied from the tent and I avoided being swept away with them, already deciding that I'd have to meet them. It's not like I needed to practice.

Smoothing my white t-shirt and pulling up my pants, I quickly ran along the outside of the tent, making my way to the opening that they'd disappeared through. I saw them chatting with Bro, everybody just called him that, and he shook their hands before heading towards his camper, no doubt grabbing the paperwork needed to get things started. I grinned as it looked like the one in the mask had removed it, but I couldn't get a good look from here. Oh well.

Putting a welcoming smile on my face, I started towards them. I could see that they both had fiery red hair, Reno's slightly longer but just as spiky as it stuck out from his ponytail. As I got closer, I could make out some features, more of Reno's at first as Axel was facing with his back towards me. He was wiping the makeup off, laughing at something that his brother had said, and I bit my lip as I saw that the red under and to the side of his eyes, was not paint, but tattoos. That was fucking hot and when his blue eyes met mine, I grinned.

Nudging his brother with his arm, he nodded and murmured something causing Axel to turn around. My mouth went dry as the most intense green, almost burning if that made any sense, stared straight into my eyes and I didn't even get the chance to properly appreciate the small teardrop shaped tattoos under his eyes, as I was now standing in front of them and they no doubt were expecting some kind of interaction and not me staring. But still. How lucky was this? Two hot, red-headed twins. Nice.

I stuck my hand out to Axel and said, "Welcome. My name is Roxas. Tightrope walking and various acrobatics. Nice to meet you." He grinned at my introduction, about to give me his hand to shake it, but Reno shoved Axel aside, grinning just as wide and taking my hand in his instead.

"That's Axel," he said before being shoved away himself, Axel now holding onto my hand.

"And the rude jackass is Reno."

"You shoved back, yo."

"Because ya shoved first," Axel growled, glaring at Reno while still shaking my hand.

"We throw knives," they then told me in chorus, frowning at each other as they did so. Giggling and not removing my hand, I just nodded. If my gaydar was in any kind of working order, I was pretty sure they were both flaming.

"So I saw. And very well indeed. So, where did Stefan find you?"

Axel let go of my hand as Reno slung an arm across his shoulders, ruffling his brother's hair. "The streets, yo! We've never been part of a circus of any kind. You guys seem really cool." Reno responded.

"And you clearly aren't since ya still use words such as 'yo' and 'cool'. Way outdated, dude." Axel chuckled, cringing when Reno gave him a soft pat on the cheek, clearly expecting a smack or slap of some kind. The soft pat is all he got though. "Kay, well, since Reno doesn't give me a chance to speak, I'm thinking he doesn't want me to. Imma unload the car." Giving me a quick smile, he untangled himself from his brother's hold with another shove.

"You are touching my music material, Axel Montenegro, over my dead body." Reno growled. "You talk with the wire dude, _I'll_ go unload." Giving me a salute, Reno then walked off, whistling a tune as he did so.

"Glad you like it here. I've been here awhile, so feel free to ask me anything and I promise to help you any way I can." So, I was blatantly flirting. I couldn't help it. He was really hot and I hadn't seen someone as talented as he seemed to be in a while. Besides, it was harmless flirting.

"Oh well, thanks, Roxas, 'Preciate it." He gave me another smile. "Doubt I can, but if I can help ya with anything, lemme know and I'll do my best."

Not wanting to end the conversation just yet, but hardly seeing any way that it could drag out, I stepped closer and to the side of him, pointing at the white and blue trailer that belonged to me. "That's my house over there. A word of advice. When you get yours, stay near that and you'll never be downwind of the animal trailers." Stepping back around, I offered my hand again, giving him a sincere smile this time and not a flirty one. He was family now. "It was very nice to meet you, Axel. See you around."

Taking my hand, he shook it. "See ya." Both taking a step back, we were about to part ways and then...

"Axel! Fuck, scratch my earlier claim, not my dead body. This case is really heavy, get over here and help me, yo!" Reno's voice shouted across the terrain.

Axel shook his head in amusement. "That's my cue." He gave me a wave before sprinting off to go help his twin. Giving them one last glance, I gave a salute they could not see and put my hands in my pocket, whistling as I went back to my own act. Practice, practice, practice.

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><p><strong>Axel<strong>

Sprinting over the freshly cut grass, I made my way to mine and Reno's car, seeing my twin crouched by the trunk, holding up the case that carried his music set up. It was a bunch of electric stuff that you hooked up to a computer and to speakers and the computer you could then hook up to an instrument. Reno's instrument being the violin mostly, although he could pretty much play anything if he set his mind to it.

But the case had the electrical crap he used to be his very own one man band. I'd always been one more to dance and listen to music then to actually play it. In any case, that box he was holding up was heavy as shit and it was going to be complicated to help him unload as he never let me touch it. Not even me, his very own twin, did he trust with that equipment.

"So how are we gonna do this, Reno?" I asked, grinning in amusement at the clear difficulty he was having. "Last time you wanted me to help we ended up in a fist fight. I lost one tooth and you had a broken nose." Circling him slowly, I rubbed my chin thoughtfully to taunt him as he puffed out some air, trying to keep the box up. "And more importantly in that tale... The box never left the car even after I spit out the tooth and drove you to the hospital to get your nose fixed."

"Yo, Axel, stop being a bitch and just get me a cart or something. I'm sure you can find one around here somewhere. It's a circus. They gotta have carts." He gave me a sweet smile, the sweet in that smile being heavily sarcastic.

I nodded, "Sure, sure. By the elephants. To shovel up their crap." Of course with a company this size, they didn't have elephants, but in the heat of the moment, I doubted Reno would remember that. Turning, I grinned and was about to walk away, but knew in advance what was going to happen, so I stopped walking when I heard the box being shoved back into the car trunk and then jumped away when Reno launched himself at me.

"Elephant crap? What are you doing to me, dude?" He managed to bite out as he stabilized himself, quickly smoothing his clothes to pretend he hadn't lost balance in the first place when I'd jumped aside, not letting him tackle me down. "Fine, whatever. But only the box! You don't touch what's inside!" He growled, walking back over to grab his end of it, and I shuffled around until I could hold onto the other side. Lifting it together, I let him walk backwards, making sure to tell him what he needed to avoid as we moved around the large dark green circus tent that was going to be our home.

"Ever think we'd end up being part of a circus?" I asked somewhat absentmindedly as I scanned my surroundings. I knew I was going to bitch about rain... I didn't like getting wet and now that I'd be living outside for the most part what with the whole camper lifestyle that went with the circus routine... Yeah, I was going to whine about the damn rain. Luckily the sun was out today and Reno hadn't sweat enough yet for him to start annoying the hell out of me by bitching about sweat smelling shirts.

"We're knife throwers." Reno answered my earlier question, making clear that being part of a circus wasn't something he was surprised by at all. "Hey, what did you think of the tightrope walker?" My twin asked as we set the box down at the spot we'd chosen to park each our campers.

One belong to our dad who barely used it anymore since apparently camping made his bones ache, or so he said, so he hadn't minded giving us that one, and we'd had enough money to buy a second one so Reno and I didn't have to bunk together. Twins we were, but god, I couldn't handle that dude longer than a certain amount of hours per day. Same went for him about me, I'm sure. Of course Reno got the newest camper since he was born a minute before I was. That excuse was getting really old...

Wiping our hands, we started walking to get back to the car to unload the rest. Apparently, we had to park our cars there and not close to the campers because many of the circus people had young kids that ran around and as Stefan had said, 'It'd be kind of unfortunate if you accidentally ran one over'. Yes. That would be sad indeed, so we'd parked the car where Stefan had pointed for us to do so.

"Roxas?" I pursed my lips, remembering the short blond I'd met only a couple of minutes ago. "He seems very nice. He's the only one so far who's personally introduced himself to us." Then I remembered how pushy Reno had been, the way he'd made clear he'd wanted me to leave them alone.

Frowning, yet a small quirk tugging on my lips, I looked at him while we each pulled another box out of the car. "Are you asking me so I'll back off? Did your gaydar skyrocket again?" I raised an eyebrow as Reno snickered, making clear the gaydar had worked. "Please don't fuck him and then run off. No running here, Reno, we gotta work with him. If you wanna start something, then it's because you actually want a relatio-" I shook my head. "No. No." I said sternly. "Don't come near him in that sense. You'll screw it up." I was sure of it. Reno was very good at breaking his boyfriends. Or, 'boy toys' really. "We got a good thing going here. WE being the keyword."

He laughed full out now, dropping the box onto the ground beside his camper carefully. "Relax, Axel. Even if I were interested in him like that, he certainly wasn't fluttering his eyelashes at me." I faltered in setting the box down, not straightening as I sent a curious glance up at Reno, who was looking down at me with a smirk.

Without needing to voice the question, Reno shrugged. "We're twins. I assure you, you're just as hot as I am." I rolled my eyes then, shoving him away from me playfully as I started for the car again. "Oh come on. Alright, alright. I don't know if he was making eyes at you for sure, maybe there was someone behind you or something. Or maybe he's simple as that, not interested in either of us. But." He shoved me back, "Although he checked me out, the interest didn't last longer than that one scan."

Well, _that_ was a first. Any gay dude in a 100 mile radius around Reno wanted to tap... well, Reno. While we were both quite flamboyant physically, the flashy red hair making it difficult not to be, Reno was the one with the massive presence and personality. Not that I was timid in any way, but I was certainly not as loud as my twin.

"Whatever." I muttered back at him, deciding that I'd hit my limit of Reno for the day. "Just don't use and toss him like you did all your previous partners. Even though you don't listen this, I don't approve of it when you do it to complete strangers, but I'm asking you now, as your twin, to not screw this circus deal up for us. It's a dream come true, ya?"

Reno's grin turned into a genuine smile, giving me a nod. "Okay, yo. No screwing the tightrope walker." He agreed.

"And?" I clipped out.

He groaned. "Fine! I'm not fucking anything in this place, okay?"

Smiling, I nodded in satisfaction. "Good boy. Now get away from me. You're getting on my nerves."

He ruffled my hair, skipping away before I could smack him. "Right back at you, little bro!"

"One fucking minute!" I shouted after him.

"A minute it still is!" He shouted back. Shaking my head in amusement as I watched him skip back off to the car, I turned and decided to unpack the boxes I'd already brought in my camper, turning the thing into something homey and a place I'd enjoy spending time in when, for example, it was raining and I didn't want anyone to hear my bitching about the wetness.

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><p><strong>The next day<strong>

Frowning at the sound that was trying to pull me out of my very sweet and relaxed slumber, I flipped from my belly over onto my back, figuring I'd smother my head with a pillow to drown out the noise. Instead though, I whacked my arm against something leading me to yelp out in pain, shooting up in my bed. Huh.

Rubbing my wrist, I blinked at my surroundings and then nodded in recognition, realizing I lived in a camper now. Although my bed was a two person bed, the ceiling was a lot closer than I'd expected it to be, hence the whacking. I was surprised I hadn't bumped my head into it as well, but apparently I'd figured out how much space there was between my mattress and bed with the hand smacking.

Below my bed there were two small... I wanna say couches, but they were only big enough to fit two people each, and you had to really sit close by the other to fit in the first place. A table was set in the middle. It was cozy. The thing I used to climb down my bed from, was the small compartment where I had a tiny shower stall and opposite from that was a sink with a counter next to it where I could install a hot plate. I didn't bring that though, Stefan said they had a camper turned into a kitchen that all the circus folk could use, including myself and Reno now.

There was another camper with bathrooms somewhere as well and apparently wherever they planted the circus tent, it was on grounds that belonged to the city the circus traveled through, and of course they got permission from the mayor, and usually the mayors gave access to some kind of gym building where the circus folk could then take comfortable showers and do their laundry. Not too bad, really. Aside from the rain, I could definitely get used to this living style without that much issue.

The noise that had woken me though... That was something I'd been hearing for years. Why did we put our campers side by side anyways? We could have at least put some distance, but no, we hadn't thought it out and so now my neighbor on my right was my twin, Reno, who practiced the violin quite often. Which is what had woken me. Now, he played fantastically, so that was a good thing, but...

Being woken up by a sibling, be it gently, kindly, roughly, harshly, evilly, beautifully, or menacingly? It all sucked royally. Pushing the blanket aside, I jumped down to my 'first floor', circling the small shower stall and making my way, that being one big step really, to rip the curtains open of the one window I had. Reno's window was opposite of mine, and of course he was up bright and early, because that fucker was always up bright and early. I was the night owl, while he worked best in the mornings. It made practicing difficult sometimes, but we managed with some ass kicking.

"Reno!" I roared, tapping the glass furiously and glaring at him through my window and through his as well. Either he didn't hear me, or he chose to ignore me, as he continued to play the blasted violin until my fist knocking on the window actually started hurting. What the fuck ever.

Taking a deep breath, I decided to ignore Reno's existence on this planet for the time being, deciding I'd much better deal with that little fact after having downed at least three cups of coffee. Sighing, I scanned the floor of my camper quickly, pulling on a pair of pants and a shirt I'd unpacked the night before, giving the unknotting of my hair a try for about a split second, but just as soon gave up and kicked my camper door open.

Okay. The fresh air was definitely a nice thing to wake up with. Stretching once I'd stepped outside, I let my bare toes curl into the grass, rolling my neck before slowly walking off in direction of the kitchen camper that had to be located somewhere on the other side of the bigger circus tent.

Stefan had explained they had a setup of some kind around the main tent. Sleeping caravans, equipment caravans, utilities caravans, and then a practice area, since there were quite a few acts and not all could train inside the tent at the same time. After the practice area the circle was closed off with the sleeping caravans again. Figuring it would be more interesting to make my way to the utilities caravans by going through the practice area rather than the equipment, I took a right.

There weren't that many people walking around, but I could hear music coming from the big tent, people talking and I'm sure I'd find plenty more in the kitchen caravan. I could still hear Reno's violin, and it wasn't unnerving me as much as it had a few minutes ago, as now it was sort of a nice background type sound in my ears while I took my exploratory walk around the circus grounds.

My ears perked as I heard someone close by, and I felt a bubble of excitement build up inside of me as I really did want to see what all the other people in this circus did as up until now I hadn't seen anything, really. Except the makeup artist, Leila. I'd wanted to be the zombie, but Reno of course had gotten that by using the 'one minute older' excuse again.

Following the soft noise of... I'm not sure what it was, but I followed it anyway, taking a right and circling a large box I'm sure held many important performance items until I stood before a large-

I smiled as I saw I'd followed the noise to the slackwire, looking a little ways up to see that blond from yesterday, Roxas, standing on one of the X shaped pillars that was keeping his rope up. It wasn't very high, but high enough that I'd have to outstretch my arms to be able to reach the cord if I wanted too.

Fascinated with how concentrated he looked, I stared as he pushed the blond locks out of his face, tugging on his shirt and smoothing the light cotton pants he was wearing, before outstretching his arms on either side of him, placing one foot onto the cord. He wasn't walking on it yet, but I knew he wasn't going to, and I felt my body tense as I watched his feet carefully, wondering how the hell he managed to do such a thing as balance himself on a cord that thin. I was both excited to see the result, but fearful at the same time because if he fell, it must hurt. But I knew that was part of the thing that made this type of act so brilliant. It was dangerous and made people stare in transfixed fascination while a bubble of stress for the person on the cord tightened in their stomach.

He gracefully placed the next foot before the other, and while that action had been deliberately slow, the next had me surprised as he suddenly walked on it, rather willy-nilly if you asked me, making it seem like there was absolutely nothing to it. His arms were still outstretched, but he might as well have been eating a sandwich, and I'm sure he'd look just as relax as he did now.

Point of the matter to that being, he surprised me, and I couldn't help but let out a 'Woah!' as I watched him go.

"Shit!" He gasped out, before wobbling once, trying desperately to maintain the balance that had probably taken years to perfect, but he was just too overbalanced. I watched as he whipped his arms in, no doubt knowing the correct way to fall as he slipped off the rope, his face holding it's surprised look as he went to the side.

Eyes widening as the image of him crashing to the floor shot through my mind, I quickly took the three small steps distancing me from the slackwire, only making it just in time to stick my arms out and catch a hold of him before his body connected to the hard ground. The sudden weight of him did surprise me, but I managed to stay upright with ease as he wasn't that heavy at all and after having worked in a factory for a couple of years lifting heavy things on a daily basis, this wasn't exactly hard to do.

One arm was under his knees and the other around his shoulders, leading him to have let his arms come around my neck in reflex, I worriedly looked down at his face to make sure he was alright.

"You okay?" I asked frantically.

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><p><strong>Roxas<strong>

"Holy shit!" I yelled out, scared out of my mind for a split second. Not about the fall, well, sort of about the fall, but more about the fact that some guy had his arms around me cradling me when I should be lying on the ground, probably with an aching backside. My mind and eyes finally took in red hair, deep green eyes and it took me another split second to place just who the fuck was holding me like I was his bride.

"Axel," I bit out, not really pissed, but more annoyed as he'd been the one to startle me in the first place. My heart was finally slowing down now that I knew I wasn't in any kind of danger and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm so, so, so, sorry!" He said quickly, hitching me up into his arms higher as I'd probably been slipping for a moment. He blinked, shaking his head and then seemed to realize he could set me down onto my feet. He didn't step out of my personal space though, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders as he ducked his head to keep scanning his eyes over me worriedly. "I didn't mean to startle you. I totally should have told ya I was here, but you were up there and I was watching and I was just so fascinated and then-"

I slapped my hand over his mouth, gently but firmly, and I quirked an eyebrow. "Just...chill out, okay?" Waiting for a moment as I felt his lips finish moving, barely tickling my palm, I quietly said, "I'm going to remove my hand, and you're going to relax. It was just an accident, I wouldn't have been hurt too bad and I'm pretty sure you just learned a pretty good fucking lesson about interrupting another person's practice time. Yes?"

Nodding once, I slowly pulled back, marveling at just how handsome and intense his face was. I suppose I could have been seriously hurt by falling, but it would do no good at pointing that out to the guy now and plus...it was really quite adorable that he was so worried and scared for me. Not to mention that I hadn't been caught and held like that since I was a child. It made me feel kind of...treasured is probably the best word. But it was also quite unnerving as I'd just met the guy yesterday.

He nodded his head a couple of times, swallowing as he let his hands slip from my shoulder, seemingly willing to do as I instructed and relax. "I swear, normally I'm not the idiot with bad timing. That's Reno's specialty." He frowned at me. "Are ya sure you're okay?"

Nodding and giving him a reassuring smile, I reached up on my tiptoes to pat his head as if he were a child. "I'm fine, Axel. Are you okay?" I'm sure he was, the guy had held me up as if I weighed nothing and I'd felt the muscles against my back. Glancing up at my slackwire, I wondered if I would need a few minutes before climbing back up there.

The frown deepened, "Yes of course. I wasn't the one fallin'." He pointed out. "I'm just glad my reflexes were quick enough so I could catch you. I didn't hurt you when I caught you, did I?" He looked me over again and then stopped. "Oh, god, okay. Imma go now, you probably want me to leave."

He smacked the heel of his palm against his forehead, rolling his eyes at himself and sticking his tongue out, giving me a great view of the piercing there. "Stupid Axel. I need coffee. I'll leave you to it. Bye, yo. No, just bye. Yo is Reno's word. Bye." He blabbered out, slowly walking away from me backwards.

Feeling a pang in my chest as I didn't really want him to go, I quickly reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it with both of mine so he couldn't retreat anymore. "Wait! I don't want you to leave!" Rolling my eyes, but not letting go for fear he'd run away, I stood for a minute trying to gather my thoughts. God, he was simply too adorable. Not his looks, those were fucking hot, but he was like a giant puppy.

"Please, just let it go. I'm fine and you're fine and I could use a boost to get back on my slackwire." Yes, use that as an excuse. He was pretty tall and this way I didn't have to climb the poles like a monkey. I sort of didn't want to get back on, but I wanted an excuse for him to stick around.

He gave me a smile, nodding. "Okay!" He agreed, but then shook his head. "Wait. I seriously do need coffee though." Looking thoughtful for a moment, he then added, "You want me to bring you a cup?" My eyes widened as I realized that going with him to get coffee was a chance to talk with him a bit more and maybe get to know him. Yes, good idea, Roxas.

Nodding enthusiastically, I gave him my biggest smile. "Yes, but I'll come with you if you don't mind. I could use a cup and a break anyways." I waited to see what he would do about my hands holding onto his. Another nod of agreement and then he flipped his hand over in mine, grasping one of them before he stepped to the side, using both mine and his arm to spin away from the path before me, ending up by my left side after he'd danced around me. Hand now gone from my hold, I did feel that same hand rest lightly between my shoulder blades for a moment.

"Let's do that then." He gestured for me to lead the way, the hand on my back gone as quickly as it had placed itself there. Very smooth. Chuckling, I glanced over at him and licked my lips as I took in his morning appearance. His hair was really crazy, but he still managed to look put together. It was a catchy look and I bet he'd be just as entertaining to watch with that red hair instead of the werewolf mask.

"So, where are you from?" I asked, sort of doing a hop walk so we were going a bit faster than my legs could keep up with. His legs were fucking long.

He seemed to slow down to keep up with my short legs, which was greatly appreciated and I sent him a grateful smile. "Bikanel island, which is about an hour from Luca. It's in Spira country. Ya guys were touring there before ending up here in Radiant Garden country. Stefan saw us perform in Luca and gave us his contact number." He smiled at me. "We called like, a week later, and you guys were already here in Twilight Town. You do that a lot? Such long trips over such short periods of time?"

Nodding as I calculated in my head exactly where he was from in comparison to everything else, being in the circus sort of got one used to knowing a large area, I answered. "Sometimes. And then sometimes we stay longer in some areas. We have a few shows that are booked every year and we are sort of regulars for some towns. And then sometimes it's just a huge mess." Glad that there weren't a lot of talkative people in the food tent in the morning, we ducked inside and headed over to where the coffee maker was. "How long have you been throwing knives? You're very good."

He quickly stepped over to the coffee maker, pouring a mug for me and himself, sighing contently as he did so. "Thank you." To the compliment. "And Reno and I have been throwing knives since we were thirteen. Dad's a single parent, so he was working a lot and at that age our neighbor just regularly came to check on us."

Smiling, he handed me the mug, taking a sip of his own before he continued. "Still meant that in between her visits me and Reno were alone. We were watching TV and saw these pro knife throwers." He grinned, gesturing for me to sit down on one of the small benches around the round cable wheels we'd tipped over to use as tables before he sat down himself. "So of course, true to being thirteen year olds without adult supervision, we had to try it out."

He shrugged. "That's how it started. Cause we were bored. Usually how Reno and I end up doing things anyways." He laughed. "It's how Reno ended up throwing knives at me instead of at the wooden board. I gotta say, I was surprised, but after dodging, I can assure ya that I threw one right back." Giving me a friendly wink, he then nodded at me curiously. "What about you? How'd you end up on a cord?"

Taking a sip of my own coffee before answering, I sighed as it warmed my stomach and chest. "My parents were this company's tightrope walkers for a long time and I've been doing it since I could almost walk. I was added to the act when I turned twelve. Been doing it ever since." I envied him a sibling. It had been hard enough on my mom to have just one kid, and I was sort of a miracle to begin with as the doctors had told her that she couldn't have kids. "So, you guys are pretty close?" I asked, referring to Reno. They'd have to be close to throw knives at each other. That took a lot of trust.

He pursed his lips, taking another sip before nodding. "Yeah. We're twins." He shrugged, as if that said it all. He didn't stop there though. "We're far from identical though, both physically and mentally. More brothers in those senses. But that freaky twin bond is sorta there. But ya know," He grinned, "the secret language thing twins are so known to create together? The one I got with Reno is through fists." Another shrug, "Sure, it makes us brutes, but we get each other. And with Reno I can be as honest as I want to be without hurting his feelings. If I want him to piss off because he gets on my nerves, I tell him, and he leaves without bitching about it. Vice versa of course. Although I think Reno's better at pushing people's buttons then I am."

He surprised me when he suddenly smiled softly at me. "Plus, we're all my dad's got now. He lost our mom already, wouldn't want him to have to deal with two sons that just can't stand each other."

Matching his smile with one of my own, I reached out, giving in to my desire to touch him again and put my hand on his arm. "I'm sorry about your mom, and your dad is pretty lucky to have two talented sons like you guys." I wasn't sure what it was, but I felt the urge to just let loose and flirt with him in a hurry. Probably because I knew that I was not the only gay performer and I wanted Axel for myself...or at least I wanted a chance with him.

If he didn't like me in that way, then I was okay with that. But I was certainly attracted to him and so far, I liked his personality as well. Win, fucking win. After a moment, I pulled my hand back and went back to drinking my coffee, wondering if he'd ask me questions of his own, or if I needed to poke him a little more.

"Was it fun to grow up in a circus?" He asked then, those green eyes never losing their curiosity as they looked at me. "And like, say ya had kids, would you apply the same life style on them?" He grimaced. "Sorry, funky question I'm sure, it's just that this way of living is so different from the norm, and since you've grown up in it, I was curious to see if you wished it on anybody else."

What an odd question and one I'd never really thought about as I'd always assumed that being gay would mean I wouldn't have children of my own, "Well, I guess I never really thought about it. I mean, I'm gay, so to even adopt a child while I was in the circus would be next to impossible."

Thinking hard now, I tried to picture what my parents had to do to keep me with them. I'd needed tutors for school as I didn't go to a regular one and I'd only made a few friends in my life, and only ones that were connected with the circus. And those were few and far between these days, most having moved on from circus life or just moved on to different companies.

"I suppose I would try to be a good parent and if they needed more stability than circus life could offer, I'd settle down and maybe look for work in another trade." Looking back at him, I blushed. "What about you? I mean, you've only been a member of the company for a day, but have you thought about having kids while you are with the circus?"

He blinked before grinning. "I actually haven't thought about kids at all. Just... didn't really cross my mind yet, I guess. If I do, much like you, I'm gay, so it'd be adoption or surrogate." He finished the last sip of his coffee, setting the cup down then before stretching his arms out over his head. "Adoption is pretty much screwed if I tell them I'm a knife thrower, ya know? So I'd have to cross my fingers and hope to find a lady that won't mind a knife thrower for one of the dads. But, back to the point." Rolling his neck, he nodded. "Circus life seems fine to me for kids. They'd always be busy and could never complain about getting bored."

Tilting my head to the side, scanning my memories, I had to agree. "Yeah, that's one thing about it. I was never bored." Finishing off my own coffee, I quickly stood holding my hand out for his cup. "Want another? Are you feeling awake yet?"

Biting back at least three more questions that wanted to break free, what his plans were that day, did he want a tour, and I even wanted to ask him over to my trailer to watch a movie, I simply waited. Enough time for that later and I certainly didn't want to scare the fuck out of him and have him avoid the crazy tightrope walker. I could be guilty of over-enthusiasm sometimes.

"I'm alright. But if you want another, I don't mind hangin' out," Another friendly wink, "I still owe you a boost after all."

Damn him and those winks, I felt myself blush again, but in pleasure this time. Victory. He wanted to hang out. "I'll get some later, after practice. Can't have too much in my system or I get all wobbly." Grabbing his cup, I ran it over to set it on the counter before running back over to him. "Okay! Come on, we can hang out in the practice area before we get roped into helping with any food they end up making."

Even though it wasn't really necessary, I offered my hand to help him up from the table. It was sneaky, something I wasn't above, but more than anything I was constantly curious about his reactions to me. I wanted them to always be positive. He didn't seem to think twice about it, simply placing his hand in mine, but not really using me to get up onto his feet as by the time his palm connected with mine, he was already standing.

"Let's go." Happy, but not wanting to seem too eager about holding hands, I just pretended to drag him back outside. Feeling a little self-conscious despite the bravery I'd shown earlier, I gently released it as we stepped outside the tent. It was so weird, I wanted his attention and I usually tried to be brave, but sometimes my courage failed me. For example, I really wanted to be bold and hold his hand all the way back to my slackwire, but I was nervous about it.

"How long were you a street performer?" Anything to distract him from what I was sure was strange behavior, I gripped my hands behind my back and peered up at him, internally grimacing as I was reminded of how tall he was standing up.

He smirked at my grimace. "You'll be taller than me in a second." He murmured. "And about two years. We started when we felt confident enough to perform in public and when our dad couldn't forbid us anymore, that being the awesome legal age of eighteen."

"So, you're twenty? Dangit, I was hoping to be your actual senior in age, not just in position." I winked to let him know I was kidding before adding, "I'm nineteen. Hey, would you like to try the slackwire sometime? With the way you dance and move your body, you seem to have really awesome balance."

Waiting for Axel to respond, I saw his smile turn into a frown. "I think my brother beat me to that lesson..." He murmured, halting in his steps as he looked up and ahead, pointing a finger so I would look. Turning my head, my eyebrows raised as I saw Reno hanging from the cord, lifting his legs to try and get up onto it, but only managing to hang upside down instead. When Axel cleared his throat, Reno turned his head, giving us an upside down grin.

"Yo! The view is awesome!"

Axel sighed. "He keeps saying that cause he was born a minute before, that makes him the older one. I think they accidentally switched us around in those first couple of minutes after we were born, and I'm actually the one that's older."

I crossed my arms in front of my chest, less than pleased that he'd touched my equipment without my permission and without a spotter. Hell, I wasn't even going to let Axel try out this slackwire. I had a shorter one that I was going to let him get used to.

"You need to get down. Unless you want me messing with your equipment without your permission." I tried to keep my voice polite, but he needed to know he couldn't just do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

I don't know whether it was my tone, my stern posture or my words, but whatever it was, he instantly let himself drop to the ground, giving me a serious nod. "Scuse me, Wire dude. Didn't mean to mess with your stuff, yo." He sounded sincere enough. Clapping his hands together, he walked over to me and Axel. "So, what's going on?"

Nodding to him, letting him know it wasn't too big of a deal, but enough of one that it needed to be said, I dropped my arms down and stuffed them into the pockets of my pants. He was different than Axel, obviously as they were different people, but there was just something that seemed...rougher. Just around the edges. But he was still a nice guy, and at least willing to listen to a young short kid.

"I'm getting to know Roxas," Axel said my name pointedly, probably trying to get his brother to stop calling me 'wire dude'.

"Getting to know, or..." Reno waggled his eyebrows, "Getting to know?" His voice sounding more meaningful that second time around. I smirked and raised an eyebrow at him, letting him know that I knew exactly what he'd been asking and I felt my ball of courage hold as I gave him a quick small smile that Axel didn't see. It's not like I was exactly hiding it, but I did want his brother to know that I sort of liked Axel.

Axel laughed disbelievingly, "Clearly the batch of manners mom and dad had to offer only got stuffed into my gene pool as you seriously have none whatsoever."

Reno laughed then too, just not disbelievingly, "Oh shut it, Red, you lack manners when you aren't around pretty blonds you want the attention of," He was snickering now, taunting Axel to the max.

"Stop that!" Axel clipped out.

"Stop that!" Reno mimicked.

"Reno!" Axel whined.

"Reno!" Reno repeated.

"Guys!" I yelled, stepping between them, letting my hand rest on Axel's chest, but only hovering over Reno's, trying not to laugh at their childishness. "Adults all around, please?" Giving them looks of which I hope were the stern kind one gave a child, I stepped back, pretending to dust my pants off and trying to hold down my blush at being able to touch him again. "Now. Can you act like twenty year olds and not five year olds?"

"What?" Axel squawked indignantly. "He fucking started it!" His voice seemed to take on a higher pitch when he sounded disbelieving, "Pushing my buttons, riling me up, repeating me!" And he was walking away. Shit. "I didn't do anything! It's always fucking Reno!" A growl followed that declaration.

"It's true. It was sorta my fault. Wanted to get under his skin and clearly I did right." Reno snickered. "Now that I've done my brotherly duty of the day, Imma be nice and tell you to go after him." He nodded at his brother's retreating back. "Go on. Once he slams that door he won't let anyone in, yo."

Giving him a grateful look, I nodded. "Thanks, Reno. Stop by another time, and you can actually try the small slackwire." He'd probably give up on it, but he seemed the type to want to try everything at least once. My eyes went back to the retreating redhead and I quickly darted forward, glad I'd always been a quick one so that I could catch up with him. "Axel! Please wait!" It didn't hurt to be polite as I chased him down.

I hadn't expected him to actually listen, so when he did stop, halting his steps abruptly, I bumped into him. My face nearly connected with his chest, but his hands grasped my upper arms first. "Whoops, sorry, didn't think you were right behind me." He murmured, "And I'm also sorry for just walking off like that. Reno just-" His jaw locked. "Well sometimes I have the impression he was born just to make sure someone could piss me off from time to time throughout my life."

Staring up at him and just losing myself for a moment, I nodded as my brain just stalled and thought 'pretty', while looking into his eyes. I shook myself out of it quickly enough, and resisted the urge to hug the poor guy. Reno could probably rile up anybody at the drop of a hat. He'd probably meet his match one day though. I sure hope I could be around for that.

"It's fine. I just...well..." Stepping back, I scratched the back of my head nervously and smiled. "I don't really get siblings, but we can toilet paper his trailer tonight in revenge if you want."

He grinned. "Not necessary, but thanks Rox." Reaching out, he flicked a lock of my blond hair out of my face, the tip of his finger tracing my cheek so lightly, I wasn't quite sure whether he'd done it on purpose or not. "Want that boost now?"

Glancing back, I sighed in relief as I saw Reno was gone and turned to give Axel a smile. "Sure. You gonna stick around and be my audience?"

"Definitely." Placing an arm over my shoulders, he pulled me along and back to the wire. I doubt the touch was more than just friendly, but at least he was feeling comfortable enough around me now to make gestures. "Stefan hasn't anything planned for me and Reno much yet, so I can hang out." Good, he still wanted to hang out.

"He'll probably give you a chance to settle in, which means I can tell you all the company secrets." I chuckled, trying to cover up my anxiousness about him being so close. A good kind of anxious, but still...I led us over to the X shaped posts that held the slackwire in place, and I stepped in front of him, pulling his hands and making them hold my waist. "Okay, when I say three, you're going to just lift and I'll settle in at the pole junction. I'll be fine after that." It was only about four feet to where the poles crossed each other, I'm sure he could lift me that far, and then I could do the rest. "Okay?"

His fingers grasped my hips and I felt his body step closer behind me. "Go for it."

Resting my hands on top of his, I let myself grin at the small victory of making him touch me and knowing that he couldn't see it. "One...two...three!" I jumped and gasped at the sensation of almost flying as he easily set me where I needed to be. Turning around, I grinned. "You're really strong, ya know?"

"Or maybe you're just really light." He returned. "I promise no sudden moves or noises this time. And if I so happen to do either of those and you slip again? I'll just have to catch you." Another one of his winks before he sat down on the ground, crossing his legs and leaning back onto his palms as he looked up to see me do my thing.

Easily stepping out onto the wire and facing him, I bowed and winked back. "Sounds like it's my lucky day."

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><p><strong>^_^ Hope you like it so far:D<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Second chapter! Sorry you had to wait so long:D Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Axel - a couple of days later<strong>

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Reno sang like a Russian dancer would while kicking their legs off the ground during a crouch with arms crossed. We weren't doing any Russian dancing here though, nah, instead we each had our left hands spread out on the cable wheel used as table.

Both our right hands were holding onto short little pocket knives, stabbing the wood between our spread fingers at the pace Reno was giving with his... "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" I laughed as he made us go faster and faster, barely able to keep up with the pace, but managing to keep hand and eye coordination to make sure I didn't accidentally stab off the tip of his middle finger or something. The circus clowns were hanging around us, watching over our backs as they cheered, and it only made the whole thing more fun.

"Come on, Axel! Lose this round and you're dancing in a pair of tidy whities next act!" Laughing even louder because of the reminder of Reno's stupid ass bet, I picked up the pace, making sure to keep up with his rhythm.

"Weren't we twins and I'd been an only child, I wouldn't be doing dangerous stuff like this!" I exclaimed, going faster than the rhythm he was offering, my eyes trained on the tip of my knife as I repeatedly stabbed it into the wood, jumping a finger of his each time.

"You'd be boring is what you'd be!" Reno declared, following my lead.

I snorted, "I can accept that, so long you admit you'd be dead if you didn't have me to watch over your stupid ass!"

"Agreed!" He then whistled, giving me the sign, but I shook my head.

"Nope, I'm good to keep going!"

"Don't make me lose this, Ax!" He begged.

"Oh, but it's fine if I do?"

"I'm hot, hot. You're weird hot. You can pull off a pair of tidy's, I can't!"

"We're twins, you delusional ape!" I reminded, "We're both hot, hot!"

"Fuck, fuck, fuckedy, fuck, fuck!" Reno whined, the pace slowing and he then did the long whistle to forfeit, but we were interrupted instead.

"Hey, Axel. You gotta minute?" Stefan's amused tone startled me and I glanced up to see him standing across the table, his arms folded over his chest as he raised an eyebrow at what we were doing. Roxas stood next to him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, staring down at the table.

I nodded, blindly reaching out and snatching Reno's wrist before he stabbed me through the back of my hand. Folding the pocket knife, I stuck it back into my ass pocket and then pushed Reno's hand back into his chest. "You know I dislike it when I don't see them coming."

My twin smirked. "You saw that one coming, didn't you, yo?"

"Be nice with the clowns," Poking him in the forehead just because I could, I then jumped up onto my feet, turning and walking out of the kitchen tent with Stefan and Roxas so I could give them my attention. Roxas fell in step beside me, and I slung an arm over his shoulders, smiling down at him as Stefan seemed to be leading us a little way off.

"How are ya?" I asked, patting his shoulder before retrieving my arm.

Grinning up at me, his eyes wide he answered. "Fine. But that scared the shit out of me, what you were doing back there." He shuddered.

I shrugged. "Eh, I only need two fingers to throw a knife properly. Losing three isn't that big of a deal." When his eyes widened further, I let out a short chuckle. "Oh, sorry, that's the way Reno and I reason things. With the act we always hope that if we get hit, it's at least not in any major organs." That didn't seem to help much either. "We know what we're doing." I promised then. "When it comes down to it, a knife is probably just as unpleasant as falling from a tightrope onto harsh cemented ground." I offered.

He shook his head, eyebrows furrowed, but before he could respond, Stefan stopped and pointed at a few chairs set up next to his trailer. "Have a seat. There is something I want to talk about with you two." He said, sitting down in one and sort of facing the two other seats. Roxas followed suit and sat in one of those looking slightly nervous.

Reaching over, I patted Roxas' knee. "If he gets too scary I can accidentally stab him for you." I offered Stefan a pleasant grin, which he returned wholeheartedly.

Roxas chuckled and patted my hand back. "It just feels like my dad is about to lecture me about something, is all. What's up, Stefan?"

Stefan cleared his throat and glanced between us before starting. "I saw what happened the other day. You know, when Roxas fell off of the slackwire. And after thinking about it, I have a proposal for you two." Turning to look at me, he ran his eyes up and down, as if he was measuring me. "I want you two to have an act together."

"What?" Roxas looked confusedly at him.

"An act, Roxas. You remember what that is right?"

"But he's never even done the wire before!" Roxas exclaimed pointing at me.

I chuckled. "Easy, you make it sound like a crime."

His cheeks turned a dusky pink as he looked at me and he turned towards Stefan to ask, "Just what kind of act were you thinking of?" Eyes fixed onto his cheeks still, I watched the pink slowly fade from there as he seemed to gather himself, waiting for Stefan to answer his question.

Roxas was most likely the cutest guy I'd ever laid eyes on. The combination of his light blond spiky hair and big blue eyes really did a number on me. It was hard to ignore, not impossible, but I was realizing that it was becoming a bit harder each day.

Stefan grinned. "Stand up." Roxas immediately stood, probably used to listening to this guy almost as much as he listened to his parents. Pointing at me, he motioned for me to stand as well. "Pick him up, Axel."

First shaking my head to snap out of my thoughts, I then shook my head again in surprise. Pick him up? "What?" I asked, all the while moving to stand behind Roxas, somewhat automatically listening to what Stefan asked and in reflex my hands came to rest on Roxas' hips. Stefan didn't repeat himself, just motion with his hand for me to do as he asked.

Giving him a nod over Roxas's head, I then surprised myself as my thumbs stroked his hips in gentle reassurance while I leaned in closer to murmur. "You want to count to three again?"

Leaning back so that his head hit my chest, he nodded. "Yeah, ready?"

It was awfully hard to think straight with the smell of his hair coming right up my nose. He smelled nice... "Yeah." I managed to get out, grasping his hips firmly. I figured I'd just lift him up onto my shoulder or something. I had no idea what Stefan wanted exactly with 'pick him up'.

His hands came up to rest and grip mine, no doubt giving all the support he could and he took a deep breath. "One...two...three!"

Lifting him, I didn't waste any time, crouching down some while pushing him up with my hands, guiding Roxas so he was settled on my shoulders, his legs pretty much framing my face now. I set my feet firmly onto the ground, somewhat unstable the first couple of seconds as it wasn't every day I was carrying someone like this. After a moment I found the right balance, my hands resting on Roxas's thighs now, while his hands seemed to have trouble deciding whether to settle into my hair or onto his knees.

"So?" I asked Stefan, patting Roxas on the leg to reassure him this was no problem. While he wasn't exactly feather light, he was definitely not heavy enough to cause me any harm sitting there.

Grinning now, he rubbed his hands together. "You guys are perfect together. How about a sort of strong man acrobatic act? One where you throw Roxas around and hold him up while he does acrobatics? You know what I'm talking about right?" Roxas finally just set his hands on the side of my head, resting partway on his legs and right around my ears. He stiffened in surprise before I felt him either shake or nod.

"I guess it depends on how Axel feels about it. He'd be doing all the work, it seems like."

I managed to shrug, grinning as Roxas let out a chuckle at the sudden movement. "We can definitely give it a try."

Stefan stood up and grinned up at Roxas. "I'll give you a few days to give me an answer, then we'll talk about when you can have a routine ready. You'll each get a budget for strength training equipment to help out as this was the company's idea. Just let me know." Giving us a short wave, he walked away whistling a rather happy tune.

Tilting my head up so I could look at Roxas, I asked, "So, they're gonna give me money to fling you around in the air?"

Smiling down at me, I watched as he stroked the hair out of my eyes. "Yes. They want to make sure you can catch me and all that. Are you sure you wanna do it? I mean, I feel like I've got the easy part."

Feeling my body heat at that very simple touch, I tried smothering it as best as I could. "Yeah, it'll be very nice to work with someone other than my brother, and I can do this. Just like you can handle being thrown around in the air doing acrobatics." I shrugged, watching as that led him to grin. "And you didn't get the easy part. Wouldn't be much of an act if I was a strong man with nothing to carry, right?" I frowned. "I don't think 'strong man' really fits me as a title though. You're just not that heavy and I'm used to lifting things."

"That's probably why he suggested it. And I guess I'll just have to make sure I don't get too heavy for you." Blushing again, this time rather fiercely, he tapped his fingers against the side of my head gently. "Um...you can let me down if you want. It's very strange to talk about this with you looking up between my legs."

Pressing my lips together tightly as I tried not to grin at what could be seen as innuendo, I nodded, crouching down so he could simply step off my shoulders. Straightening, I was back to where I was staring at his cheeks, watching the red turn pink and then fade very slowly.

"I'm not sure what we should do from here." He said, standing and looking up at me with his hands on his hips and his lips quirked. "I suppose if you have some free time, we could go over to the tumbling mats and try some lifts and what not. Or did you have practice with your brother today?"

"We did this morning." I grimaced. "Reno is an early riser. Yesterday we practiced late in the afternoon and today it was his turn to pick and so it was early morning." Giving him a nod, I gestured for him to lead the way. "Tumbling mats it is." I was going to be touching Roxas all kinds of close for the next hour or so to try it out? Oye... that certainly wasn't going to help the current case of attraction I felt towards him.

I had no idea if I should act on them as the situation we were in was somewhat delicate. After all, we did live on the same grounds and now we'd be working together on a daily basis. I also had the nagging idea he might be interested in Reno. Although I somewhat realized I may be wrong about that since Roxas never purposely asked me about Reno, so clearly he hadn't befriended me just to get closer to my twin. Eh, whatever. All this thinking was hurting my head, I guess I'd just see what would happen next.

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><p><strong>Roxas - a couple of days later<strong>

Slamming my hand down onto the small night table in my trailer, I searched around for my phone slash alarm clock. Without moving my head and shoulders I tried to extend my arm to find the fucking thing, but dammit...

"Arrgh! I'm up!" Rolling over I opened my eyes and located the damn thing pushed just centimeters away from my fumbling fingers. I grabbed it and flipped it open then slammed it closed, cursing modern technology.

Normally I didn't have a problem with getting up in the mornings, I rather liked them. Quiet, empty and calm, things were better done in the a.m. But these past few days...setting my arms on the side of the mattress, I groaned as I pushed myself standing. I was sore. Me. The tightrope walker who'd been on a wire since I was twelve.

Rolling my shoulders, glad at least that the soreness was less than what it had been the other days, I dropped my boxers and grabbed my towel, heading to my shower. Hot water would make my sore muscles happy. I hadn't thought that having Axel lift me up and balance me would result in me being sore. Hell, I'd figured he'd be dying, but nooooo.

My shoulders hurt because I'd had to hold a handstand on _his_ shoulders for about a minute the first day, as he was trying to walk or do something, I wasn't sure what. My legs were killing me because I'd been crouched on his hands as we practiced the proper stances for a toss that he could do. I'd also tested it on a chair, measuring how much height I could get without any outside help.

Flipping on the bathroom light, I checked my body for any bruises. Not that Axel had been clumsy, but I'd never really performed with anyone like this except my parents when I was really young, and _we'd_ only just met. Running a hand through my spikes, I sighed. I trusted him as a person, but it was still a little hard to trust him as a...well, partner.

Opening the shower curtain, unable to contain the smile of satisfaction that I got every time I saw how big my bathroom was compared to other performers, I flipped on the hot water and waited a few seconds before jumping in.

"Ahh...that feels fucking good." I mumbled letting the hot water loosen my sore muscles while I shampooed my hair. If I was honest with myself, I knew that one of the reasons that we weren't clicking right away was because he constantly had his hands on me. Blushing even though there was no one around, I remembered when he'd put me up on his shoulders for the first time for Stefan.

I truly hadn't felt that way before. Almost like a giant was lifting me up by the scruff of my neck, he was so strong. And then he'd left me up there for a minute...and every practice that we'd done, about three in total, his hands were on my waist, my back, sometimes my shoulders, warm and reassuring.

Rinsing the soap off of me, I shut off the water and noticed a _definite_ loosening of all my muscles. Wrapping my towel around my waist, I went to get dressed so I could do some stretches in the practice area before Axel got there. I think today we were going to try something new, hopefully over the mats in case he dropped me. Although he kept reassuring me that I didn't weigh anything, I was still having a hard time trusting that he'd be okay catching me. Oh well. If I fell...I'd hurt my ass.

Pulling on some black cotton shorts that settled against my legs below my knees and I then chose a plain white t-shirt to go over it. Throwing some gel to try and tame my blonde spikes I grabbed a quick cereal bar and slammed my trailer door on my way out, eager to see Axel by himself. It was sort of annoying, but every time we weren't practicing, it seemed like Reno was around. Well, not all the time...but he just seemed to pop up at the oddest times. Thankfully he'd never approached me about the slackwire lesson I'd offered him. Munching on my breakfast, I jogged over to the practice area, letting my blood start pumping to warm me up. As I neared the clearing, I could hear voices.

"You gotta get that move right, yo. Flip flopping is fancy, but if you can nail the feet shuffle following that jump straight away then we can add it to your dance routine." I heard Reno, sounding more serious than I'd ever heard him.

A couple more steps and I got a clear view on what was going on. Reno was standing opposite from Axel, who pulled a hat off his fiery red spikes, wiping his forehead with his other arm. "Maybe if you didn't throw a knife at my feet at that exact second I wouldn't freak out every time." Axel pointed out.

Reno sighed, juggling his knives. "Well sure, but what would be neat about the whole move if I didn't. Also, I'd just look stupid standing there waiting for you to be done."

"Just count to four instead of three. I need one extra second, is all." Axel said, giving his brother a nod before walking back in what I assumed to be 'position'.

"Alright," Reno stopped juggling, his posture stiffening as he prepared himself to start throwing. "One, two, three..." I blinked as he then started to sing, the song being 'Smooth Criminal' by none other than MJ. And he actually wasn't screwing it over, doing it justice and everything.

Axel's body moved the moment the first two words had left his twin's mouth, still dancing as smoothly as he had done that first time I'd seen him during his performance when being added to the circus. They weren't doing the whole thing though since Reno had jumped into the middle of the song and Axel seemed to skip a few moves before settling on the one that fit Reno's tempo. One, two, three, and Reno launched the first knife, leading Axel to throw his body back, flipping over onto his hands.

Pushing off from there as the second knife was launched, I could see why he needed that extra second now when the third knife launched. Had it been a second earlier, it would have nailed him in the foot before he could do the 'feet shuffle' as Reno had titled it. Basically he just continued to dance, all of the work done in his feet.

"I still think it would be better if you could get to that feet shuffle faster." Reno said, clearly not impressed.

"I'm not superman!" Axel barked back, picking up a knife that was nailed into the floor and throwing it at Reno, just because.

He dodged of course, shrugging his shoulders. "Fine. Clearly you're being stubborn today." Reno laughed then as Axel threw the second knife and before he could add more, the third.

Chuckling, I cleared my throat. "I don't know, Axel. You sure you're not superman? Didn't you save me once? Maybe we should get you a cape for the act..." I trailed off, striking a thinking pose, as if I was seriously considering adding that. Both twins stopped in their movements, the fist fight that seemed to have wanted to break out put on pause as they turned to look at me.

Axel smiled widely at me, scratching his head and giving me a sheepish look, "Hey Rox." He waved me over then.

Reno rolled his eyes at us, "Barf." Picking up his knives, he then gave a salute. "See you suckers later, yo." And then he was off.

Blushing at his words, I stuck my tongue out at his retreating back.. "Ass." I muttered. He knew I had a crush on Axel, I was sure of it. Glancing up at the redhead, I smiled sadly. It didn't seem like he knew it though. Maybe I should try and flirt a little more, or maybe I should just grow a pair and ask him out. I'd tried to reign myself in because we were now in an act together, and it would be unprofessional to screw my partner...no matter how fucking hot he was.

"How you doing this morning, Ax?"

"Good, I guess. Reno was in one of his pushy moods though." He grinned. "At least it's a sure thing to say that I'm warmed up for our practice. How are you?" He asked, walking over to the bench to drop the hat there, and then he reached up, pulling the shirt off and over his head, dropping it beside the hat.

"Fuck..." I said, my eyes glued to his now naked torso and I felt my mouth go dry as I tried to shake off my surprise. He was fucking ripped! He certainly didn't look it normally, because he was so tall, but his arms and chest, hell, his fucking abs were just perfect. A six pack...God, I wanted to run my hands all over him.

Biting my lip, I made a gut wrenching effort to meet his eyes and glare. "Fine. Just a little sore, I guess." In order to compose myself, I turned so that he was facing my side and started doing stretches. It would be better to face completely away from him, but then all I'd be able to think about would be, 'is he looking at my ass?'. There was something seriously wrong with my brain when it came to Axel. I wanted him...but I wanted him to want me...ugh.

"Hmmm," I heard him sigh in contentment after having drunk some water. "We need to figure out your footing on my shoulders. It was stable for both of us last time, but your heel left a bruise, so I'm thinking we probably did something wrong in positioning."

I turned towards him and moved closer, looking for the bruise, and maybe trying to get a closer look at his smooth skin, but I wasn't going to admit that. "Are you okay? I have some salve in my trailer that I use that can help." And at about forty dollars a container, it was pretty high end, and I only used it for emergencies. Reaching out, I touched the faint purple mark that was just barely visible on his shoulder.

He patted my hand. "I'm fine, don't worry about it. But if it hurts I'll tell ya, kay?" When I nodded, he smiled. "Alright. I think that although we're doing pretty good, you need to get to know me better in order to trust me." Okay, I hadn't expected that all of a sudden. "It's just that you stiffen every time I touch ya. I'm not tossing you into the air until we figure out what it is you need to trust me."

Sitting next to him on the bench, I faced him and crossed my legs, resting my forearms on them. "Well, part of it was that I just wasn't really sure how strong you were." Smirking, I reached out and tried to circle my hands around his bicep. "But, after seeing you without your shirt on..." I gulped as I released his arm, unable to wrap my fingers around it. "You're really ripped..."

He looked down into my eyes with a curious smile. "So my six pack is gonna fix the trust issues looming above our heads?" Clearly amused, he offered me some of his water from the bottle he was holding.

Chuckling at his words, I accepted the bottle and took a quick drink. Wiping my mouth, I handed it back and nodded. "Well, it's pretty impressive. How much can you bench press?"

"Err, 225 lbs." Giving me a nod, he added, "I can handle more, but I figure I'm in shape enough as it is, so..." He chuckled, patting his stomach.

"Yeah..." I murmured, my eyes drinking in his defined and mouth-watering muscles. Blushing still and ignoring the pounding of my heart, I cleared my throat. "That makes me feel better too. I only weigh about 132 pounds." He could almost lift twice what I weighed. Thinking about it, I felt the tension ease just a little. Now all we really needed was practice was catching. I'm sure he could throw me, no problem.

Standing, he stretched his arms. "So that was all, really? You just needed to know how much I can bench press and now you trust me?" He asked curiously. "Don't get me wrong, if that's it, then I'm glad." Crossing his arms before him, he offered me his hands, crouching down some.

This way, his left arm would go over his head while pulling me up onto his shoulder and I could use his knee to push myself up, settling my right knee across his shoulders comfortably. It was an easy move and a nice way to start out our practice, especially because his hands didn't come near my waist or anything.

Putting my hands in his, I let myself be lifted into position, settling comfortably onto his shoulders, keeping my back straight and grinning at how tall I suddenly was. "I'll still need to get used to you catching me and everything. And I'm thinking that if I widen my stance by just a bit, I can avoid bruising your shoulders."

Gripping my hands more tightly, that was the sign that gave me the green light to lean into his palms, using them as leverage to push my body up. Bringing my knees up to my chest quickly, I settled my feet onto his shoulders as 'comfortably' as I could manage before straightening out my legs.

Letting go of his hands, I now stood on his shoulders, his fingers wrapping around my ankles to keep me steady. Grunting, I saw him nod. "That's better, I think. Try putting the middle of your foot between my shoulder and neck, that curve, ya know?"

"Okay." It was different than being on the wire, my legs weren't used to standing like this, but I was better than I had been. Holding out my arms to keep me steady, I slowly shifted my feet to where he'd mentioned. It was harder to maneuver as I couldn't look down to see what I was doing, it would throw off my center of gravity. "That better, Ax? Not hurting you, right?"

"It's very hard to decide..." He muttered, his hands trying to guide my feet some. "Either you're standing on muscle covered with skin, or bone covered with skin. I think this is better though, now I just need to get used to having you up there." He chuckled. "Want to try jumping up from there?"

Swallowing my nervousness, I dropped my arms to my side and let myself get used to the balance now. "Okay. I'm just gonna drop forward? Or did you want me to curl so you catch me bridal style?" Either way, his arms were around me and I enjoyed it a little too much.

"Yeah to the second one. Kay, I'll count to three." He let go off my ankles slowly, his posture remaining stable under my feet. "One, two and three..." Pushing slightly off of his shoulders with my feet, I jumped upwards first, hearing a grunt coming from Axel, but it wasn't a sound of pain, thankfully. Curling like we'd agreed upon, it was only a couple of seconds later that I felt Axel's arms come around me, catching a hold of my body.

"Hey! Not bad!" He grinned, bouncing me up once for the heck of it.

Laughing and feeling exhilarated about the first real catch we'd done, I held on tighter with my arms around his neck and nodded. "That was pretty awesome. How are your shoulders? And the trick will be figuring out my dismount from the handstand."

"I think you'll just have to flip forward or backwards from up there and then land on your feet." He suggested. "Don't think every scenario will allow me to catch you." Instead of setting me down onto the floor, he maneuvered me up and around so I ended up kneeling onto his shoulders, his hands resting on my thighs.

"Hmm...I suppose I could do that." Letting myself pout at the thought of him not always having to catch me, I tried to even out my weight again, this time it was slightly harder as I was balancing my torso and compensating for my feet sticking out behind me. "How's this position? I think that from here, you could grab my hands and I can flip forward and land on my feet as well. Yeah?"

"Give ya a boost up into the air basically, right?" He said, while offering me his hands.

"Just a small one. Enough to clear my feet from your shoulders." Settling my hands into his, completely at ease now, happy that he seemed to get what I was saying the first time around, I took a deep breath and gave them a squeeze to signal the boost.

Pushing up with his arms, I used the leverage he offered me, pressing my body upwards and about to swing my body forward and over his head to flip and then land onto my feet before him. Everything went according to plan until about halfway through the move when my foot slipped on his shoulder, and my worst enemy, gravity, stopping the swing forward and pulled me more backwards instead. Yelping in surprise, I fell to the side, my fingers slipping out of his hands as I landed flat on my back onto the mat next to him, coughing as the wind got knocked out of me.

"Roxas!" Axel turned around instantly, eyes wide as he crouched down beside me, slipping an arm under my neck to help me up into a sitting position. Pushing the hair out of my face with his other hand, he scanned me over. "You okay?" He asked worriedly, his fingers still cupping my face.

Coughing and trying to get air into my lungs, I clutched at his shirt, wanting very much to reassure him, but unable to get the words out. I was nodding, hoping that he would get that wrinkle of worry out of his brow as I gave a weak chuckle in between the air gulps. Sitting down, he pulled me up some more, guiding me forward so he could rub my back.

"Stabbing my brother with a knife isn't as scary as dropping someone I care about apparently." He muttered, the hand on my face still there, his thumb stroking my cheek while his other had continued to move between my shoulder blades.

Oh really..."You care more about me than Reno? I'm touched." I finally managed to whisper out, reaching up to pat his head and smile. "I'm okay, really. It wasn't that bad." Not compared to the many tumbles I'd taken while doing the slackwire, anyways. I didn't move yet, instead leaning against his hand as it stroked my back and as he held onto my face.

His hands stopped moving and then he started stuttering. "Well, ehm, no. Yes? I don't know. Reno- Or you- Wait. Err..." He cleared his throat. "He's my twin!" I was aware of that... "Shit, okay, I mean that he's my brother. If I stab him and he's hurt I'll check to see how bad it is first and then usually I end up telling him to stop whining like a little bitch and grow up."

His hands slipped away, "Maybe we practiced enough for today." He said suddenly. "I can go. Imma go. Probably best if I just leave you." Untangling himself from me suddenly, he actually did start to walk away. "Don't think you'll want to climb up on me again after I didn't catch you, anyways. Bye, yo. No, wait, yo is Reno's word." Groaning, he smacked the heel of his palm against his forehead. "Just bye." He muttered out, making his way to his camper.

"Fucking hell! Get back here!" I yelled, suddenly _very_ angry that he'd walk away after that. What was his problem? Struggling to my feet, stumbling and swearing at my uncooperative limbs, I went after him. My chest heaved and I coughed again, still trying to catch my breath, as I vowed to kick his ass for walking away from that perfect moment. Fine, he didn't like me like that, whatever. But fuck that shit if he thought that one accident would mean that I didn't want to continue practice. I wasn't made of glass!

Either he didn't hear me, or he ignored me. In any case, by the time I caught up to him, he was already stepping into his camper, about to shut the door in my face. Smacking my palm against it to keep it from closing, he whirled around, looking surprised. Okay, so maybe he hadn't heard me then.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Glaring, finally finding my voice, I wasn't about to let him just leave. "Seriously? Did I say that I wanted to quit?"

He shook his head, "No, I just needed a moment." Removing his hands from the door, he shrugged. "You had trust issues with me before and now that we finally solved them, I drop you. I know it was an accident, but I just don't like it." Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair. "And then I can't shut my yap and tell you about the caring thing. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, kay?"

"You are so...ugh." Throwing my hands up in defeat, annoyed yet touched by his actions. "Axel, I still trust you. It's a_ new_ maneuver that we haven't tried before. Of course there is going to be problems! You think I hadn't thought of that? And god..." Putting my hands on my hips and looking up at him, I sighed and smiled. "Why would you caring about me, make me uncomfortable? I've been trying to, you know," Blushing, but biting my tongue, suddenly losing my courage, I swallowed and mumbled, "get you to care and stuff."

"Yeah, I don't think you get what I'm saying when I say _care_ for you, Roxie." He said, leading me to look up at him with a frown. "Care was the polite way of saying that I got the hots for ya." He gave me a sheepish nod. "See, now things are gonna be uncomfy. Before we get to the part where you tell me ya aren't interested, can you just clear something up for me?" He didn't wait for a reaction on my part, just continued, "Did you befriend me to get closer to Reno? I don't think you did since you haven't tried to get closer to Reno that I'm aware of, but I just want to make sure."

Wrinkling my nose in disgust at the very idea, I held in the sudden homicidal urge I had to kick his ass. "You are oblivious. Yup, that's it. _And_ I'm going to have to kick your ass. Of course I don't want your brother, you idiot!" I shouted, completely giving up now. "I've been flirting with you since day one, Axel." Lowering my voice now, I stared at the ground. "Fuck this." I spun on my heel and decided that for his safety, I needed to go back to my trailer now and cool down. This was beyond uncomfortable. How had a simple practice session turned everything so serious?

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><p><strong>AN: Hope you are all still with us on here:D There will be one more chapter to be posted next week:D Thanks for the reviews and all the alerts!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks again for the reviews and for being patient with us. Last chapter, and yes, here is the mature content that you all love and crave. And yeah, we are going to point out that the Mature rating means this is aimed at 17 and older again. So don't expect us to be 'super duper' excited to respond when we see that you are only 14 or something. Rant over, enjoy!XD**

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><p><strong>Axel <strong>

Standing frozen, I watched as Roxas walked away, my head screaming at get me to move and go after him. My body wasn't really reacting to the order though. What the hell just happened? One moment we were practicing, the next he fell, then I told him I cared for him and then that led to a series of events where the situation is beyond awkward and I actually told the poor guy I had the hots for him straight out.

And then, when I'm strongly expecting to be shot down, I _do_ get shot down after he tells me he's been flirting with me since day one. I was willing to admit that I was oblivious, as he called me, but he certainly was the most confusing. You didn't tell a person you flirted with them and have the hots back for them and then walk away! Then again, I did walk away first. But at that point I'd still been under the impression he wasn't interested in me in that sense!

"If you don't go after him, I'm gonna." Detaching my eyes off Roxas' still retreating figure, I frowned at Reno who'd suddenly appeared, now leaning against my camper, also staring at Roxas' back. "Always thought he was a hottie, but I backed off since he clearly wasn't interested in me. Been crushing on you since day one, like he so loudly informed you just a minute ago. Also, he's kind of too sweet for my taste."

He pursed his lips, tilting his head, clearly checking out my blond partner. "But now that I've heard him get angry?" He grinned slowly. "I'll just push his buttons until he has angry se-" He didn't get that last word out of his mouth as I punched him straight in his chest.

"Lay a hand on him and I'll nail you to that wooden board with my knives next time we practice!" I shouted at my twin.

Reno laughed all the while catching his breath from the hit he'd taken, rubbing his chest. "Shit. Alright, alright. No touching the wire dude." Straightening, he raised an eyebrow. "But only if you go after him now and settle that ridiculous drama between you two. You're making things complicated when there's no reason to be, yo."

He was right and I was going to listen to him, but admitting that out loud just seemed like a thing my sibling core couldn't allow. "Or what?" I growled.

He took a taunting step forward. "Race and chase you for him. Whoever gets to him first has dibs." Reno ducked the second punch I threw at him, this one having been aimed at his jaw and my mind hoping with all it's might I'd loosen some teeth there in the process.

"I hope someone even more twisted than you comes along and decides to toy with you some day."

"Whatever, Ax, stop growling at me and go talk to Roxas." He shooed me in the right direction. "Come on. Man up, dude, want that fine piece of ass? Then you better put your mark on it because believe me, although I promise I'll never do that to you? Someone else won't be as kind while your waiting to get the guts to go for him."

I frowned, wondering where the hell he'd learned to be logical, reasonable and 'nice' all of a sudden. "Kay..." I mumbled, walking slowly in Roxas camper's direction. "But what if he doesn't-"

Reno smacked my head. "I don't know where all this insecurity is coming from, but get rid of it." He ruffled my hair now. "He likes you back. Told you he fluttered his eyelashes at you and not me the first day, remember, yo?"

I nodded my head continuously, agreeing with his words while turning back around and walking over to Roxas' camper again. Reno had said that and he was right, Roxas had made it clear he liked me back. I just needed to stop believing that he couldn't. It wasn't that I was insecure or lacked confidence. I was actually quite a confident person, very easy going and quite laid back. But, like with every person, there was one strange thing about me. While Reno, for example, felt the weird urge to treat all his partners like crap and toss them once he'd screwed their brains out, I always had extreme difficulty in the flirting department. I was awkward and didn't know how to read the signs when someone flirted with me.

Usually, I got rid of that once it was made clear between me and the other person that we were into each other, but it was also very often guys gave up on me before getting to that stage to begin with. Sad, because I was sorta cool once I got to that stage. Smooth and everything. Better than Reno since not only did I know exactly how to treat a guy the way they wanted to be treated, but I didn't toss them after a lay like Reno did. That's what make me better.

Breathing in deeply, I stood before Roxas's camper door, before reaching up and knocking softly. Now I just hoped blondie would give me a shot to get to that stage after having screwed up.

I heard a rustle inside and the sounds of cursing, then silence. Finally, I heard a quiet growl. "Who is it?" If I told him who I was, I'm pretty sure he would tell me to fuck off. Pursing my lips, I shrugged and then knocked again. He'd probably get annoyed and curious at some point, hopefully opening the door. Hopefully.

The door was suddenly thrown open, and Roxas' blue eyes were glaring into mine, his lips pursed and fists clenched. "Oh." Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders before opening them again, relaxing his posture. "I guess we should talk, right?" Stepping back, he motioned for me to come inside. "You're in luck. I no longer have the urge to kick your ass. Feel safe?"

Considering his clipped words and posture... "Not really." I muttered honestly. "And I'd rather just throw out what I gotta say before I forget how to, and end up stuttering and then walk away again, cause that's sorta what I do when I like someone like I like you." Scanning my thoughts, I nodded. "Yeah, so I like ya. It was confusing for reasons I'm suddenly not sure I can remember right now, and I made the situation between us complicated when it shouldn't be." I totally stole Reno's words there, but that's okay. It said what I was feeling and that was the point. "I didn't mean to do that."

Simply nodding along with my words, Roxas didn't say anything for a few moments. "You're sorta forgiven, I suppose." Sighing and rubbing his forehead, he mumbled, "It's not like I did anything really obvious like lick your abs like I wanted to." Blushing now, he dropped his eyes and tucked a wayward spike behind his ear. "Wanna come in?"

Lick my abs? Blinking, I stared down at my stomach and then back up at him. "Really?" I asked, making the blush on his cheeks more furious with that question alone. But also angry, he was angry, I could tell because he gripped his door and was about ready to slam it shut in my face for being the idiot that I am and actually asking about that. Seriously? What the hell was wrong with my system? Why did I become a moron around a guy I liked?

"Oh for fuck's sake," I growled, reaching out to grab his wrist and pull him to me before that door wouldn't let me see him anymore. He struggled against my hold, leading me to roll my eyes, and try and settle him. Some more struggling on both our ends until I had my arms wrapped around his waist, his arms trapped by his sides, his feet dangling in the air as I was much taller, all the while glaring at him pointedly.

"I am trying to kiss you in hopes the lack of talk will solve the tension between us. Now would ya stop wiggling around and let me?"

"Why do you have to hold me like this?" He snapped, finally stopping his struggling, but pursing his lips into a thin line, making it impossible to kiss him. "If you would have just said you were going to do it in the first place, I would've let you, you know?"

"You were about to slam the door in my face!" I pointed out. "I just moved fast and stopped you from doing it, figuring I'd swoop in or whatever and kiss ya in that same instant." Tightening my hold on him, I shook my head. "But you being your regular monkey self, didn't give me a chance. You have a very quick temper, you know." I growled.

"It's your fault." He pouted up at me, his eyes as big as saucers and a light dusting of pink beginning to break out over his cheeks. "You just...make me feel so conflicted. I want to do things with you and yet you didn't even notice that I flirted with you, and that makes me want to kick your ass."

I set him on the short stairs that led up into his camper, loosening my hold on him, reaching up with one hand to run my fingers through his hair softly, the other arm still around his waist. "I am sorry for that. And yeah, it is my fault." I murmured. "But I know now. That's good, right?"

Reaching forward to grip my shirt, he sighed and nodded. "Just, don't walk away from me like that again...I hate it. And I will kick your ass next time. And for the love of god, kiss me please?" Leaning forward, his eyes bright and half hooded, he fisted his other hand into my shirt to tug me forward and down.

Grinning, I stepped closer, my hands resting on his hips. "I have this nagging urge to tell you 'eh, maybe some other time'," Face inches from his, I tilted my head to the side, my eyes hooding over as I could practically taste him already and I wasn't touching him just yet, "and then walk away just to find out how evil your right hook is..."

Slipping one hand around to his back, I let it rest right above his ass, humming appreciatively as my lips connected to his cheek first. "You're beautiful, you know that?" I whispered, figuring I might want to tell him what exactly I thought of him as I placed numerous kisses all over his face, avoiding his lips on purpose for now. "Smart too, and funny. And this ass..." I moaned against the corner of his mouth as my hand slipped down his butt, gently squeezing it.

He groaned and moved his mouth around, trying to catch my lips and finally, he pulled back and glared softly. "I've been crushing on you since the beginning...You are simply delicious, Axel." He murmured, finally just using his grip on my shirt to pull me down to connect his lips with mine.

I smirked against his mouth, giving it numerous pecks before parting them and settling them against his lips, capturing his bottom lip between them and sucking gently. So soft and sweet, kind of contradicting his big blue eyes he used to glare with so often. Letting go of his lip, I tilted my head some more, pressing against his mouth properly this time, my tongue slipping passed his lips.

Humming happily, his hands released my shirt so that his arms could wrap around my neck and his fingers could comb through my hair. His tongue snaked out to meet mine and I chuckled as he tried to lead the kiss. Letting him, I held him close as he kissed me deeply and somewhat roughly, moaning softy into his mouth as I was pretty sure he seemed determined to make my lips tingle with the sensation of his on mine. So far he was doing a bang up job.

Pulling back suddenly, his lips looking red and puffy from the pressure he'd used to kiss me, he gulped and glanced around behind me. "Maybe you should come inside now. I feel a little exposed making out with you on my doorstep."

"Inside?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Considering how things are going, I might not come out of there until tomorrow morning." I pointed out, looking over his head into his camper curiously, not completely opposed to the idea of spending the night. Naked.

He smirked in what I can only describe as an evil way and nodded. "Sure, you can spend the night. Clothes on and no touching below the waist." Patting the side of my cheek, he leaned back up to murmur against my lips. "I just barely caught your attention, I don't think I'm ready for everything you have to offer tonight."

"Awww..." I murmured, "But-" Peck, "It's so-" Another peck, "Good." Pecking his lips some more, I smiled. "It's still only early afternoon anyways. I'll be a gentleman and go back to my own bed tonight."

"Fine. I suppose that is acceptable...I was just going to practice my flexibility training tonight anyways." Sounding nonchalant, he blew his bangs out of his eyes. "You know, all those really tough yoga poses..." Reaching forward now, it was his turn to peck my lips softly. "But maybe I can show you those some other time."

Eyebrows shooting up into my hairline, I pulled back and shook my head. "Nah uh, Roxas I-don't- know-your-last-name, you don't get to deny me sex and then taunt me with how flexible you are. That's just cruel."

"You could always try and change my mind." Glancing down to look at his watch, he softly counted. "You have about twelve hours before I head to bed. Maybe you should try and convince me." Smirking now, he folded his arms across his chest and gave me an expectant look.

Pursing my lips, I shook my head. "Nah, I'm good. For now you can just tell me what your last name is and maybe some other things about yourself I oughta know about as your boyfriend." Nudging him into his camper, I followed him inside and then closed the door behind me. "Right. I'm your boyfriend. None of that dating crap and beating around the bush on the matter." I said firmly. "We'll just make out for the next couple of weeks until enough time has passed to make us having sex together less of a fast slutty act." Giving him a wide smile, I added. "Sound good?"

"I knew I liked you." Returning my smile with a bright one of his own, he nodded. "Can I ask a quick question, though? I'm a little confused."

"Yeah, course." I murmured, sitting down on the small couch by the window when he gestured for me to do so. "Anything."

"Why did you ask that thing about your brother?" Plopping down, he leaned against me and gave me a look until I raised my arm and he slid against my side, letting my arm settle around his shoulders.

I shrugged, smiling. "His last three partners came to talk to me first, befriending me in hopes to get close to Reno that way. Two of those had already had sex with Reno and of course Reno tossed them afterwards like he always does." Sighing as I had no idea how my twin's brain functioned, I looked down, brushing Roxas' hair out of his face. Such pretty eyes...

"I'm not insecure, but for some reason I'm just really the opposite of Reno when it comes to letting guys know I'm interested. I've only been with two men." I cringed then. "First one broke up with me to be with Reno, Reno is an ass overall but he wouldn't do that to me. The second one I kept as far away from Reno as possible and somehow he ended up having sex with him anyways." To make sure he understood Reno was a slut but not an evil slut, I added, "Reno didn't know I was with him at the time."

"He's an ass and I can't wait for him to have someone to knock him down a few pegs." He mumbled as he fiddled with the bottom of my shirt. "I just want to tell you that I never even looked twice at him."

Tossing the Reno subject out of the window as I really didn't want to talk about my twin anymore at this particular moment, I ducked my head down, pressing my lips against his forehead. "So, your last name?" I asked.

"It's O'Malley. Roxas O'Malley. What about you?"

"Montenegro." I returned. "You cool if we nap?" I murmured, not exactly waiting for an answer as I shifted us around until my legs were on the couch, Rox between them and his head on my chest.

"Considering how much I wanted to kill my alarm clock this morning, yeah, I could use a nap. Especially since I've been handled so roughly since I woke." Leaning up, he winked. "We can work on the kneeling dismount when we wake up."

"I'm usually avoiding things, not trying to catch them. It's going to take some getting used to." I poked his side, grinning widely as his body jumped up in surprise with a squawk because of the tickle.

Smacking my chest, he playfully growled. "I'm going to tell everyone that the only reason we're together is cause you dropped me on my ass."

Chuckling, I flicked his nose. "Unless they're circus folk, they'll probably wonder what you were doing up in my arms in the first place. By the time you've explained, the point of your funny comment will be long lost." I kissed him quickly before he could respond to that. His arms wrapped around my chest and he sighed against my lips, settling comfortably against me for our nap.

* * *

><p><strong>Roxas - a week and a half or so later<strong>

This was how every morning should be. I snuggled back against Axel while I continued to doze after throwing my alarm clock on the floor. The only thing that would make it any better, would be if we were waking up together naked. But that was for a later date and just having him in my bed in the morning, pajamas still on, but with an occasional hickey showing, was perfect. With him curled behind me, his arm thrown over my stomach holding me close to him, it seemed as though our bodies were made for each other. He was taller than me, but by just the right amount. Goosebumps prickled my skin as he moved, bringing us even closer together and his breath blew across the back of my neck. Damn him and his hotness. I'd barely been able to contain myself these past few days, and it was only because of our new act that I was even able to cuddle with him without ripping his clothes off.

We'd gotten a lot better, perfecting that one dismount and me practicing my landing from the handstand on his shoulder. I'd come up with a trick that I wanted to try, but he wasn't yet sold on the idea. I'd jump into his hands, he'd launch me up into a flip then I'd land on his shoulders into a handstand.

So far, the only one we'd tried was launching me straight up. But I was confident that we'd work it out. I was already thinking that I'd add him to some of the slackwire stunts I could do. Like him tossing me up and me landing on it. Sighing and pushing work thoughts into the back of my mind, I figured that I could probably sneak in about twenty more minutes before our morning wake-up call barged into my trailer. God damn Reno and his early rising.

Grinding my teeth as I remembered two mornings ago where me and Axel were still sleeping after watching a Disney movie marathon, and we'd been jolted awake by Reno barging in, demanding that Axel get his ass out of bed so they could practice, forgetting that the day before had been the early morning practice for them, hence the reason we'd decided to stay up.

And even though I watched Axel explain this to him, he'd still gotten up out of bed. They hadn't practiced, but for the rest of the day I was sluggish and grumpy. Why did he just let him do that? Fucking boundaries please! Where do I draw the line?

I mean, they were twins. They were connected in ways that I would never understand...but dammit. I wanted to wake up just one morning with my boyfriend without someone barging in before I got to kiss him awake. Cracking one eye, I determinedly re-closed it and willed myself to relax and hope that Reno wouldn't be sticking his nose where he wasn't wanted this morning.

Smirking as I felt Axel's fingers begin teasing my stomach a little, I rested my hand on top of his, lacing my fingers through them and pulling him tighter around me. If I wasn't careful, he'd end up tickling me until I was forced to jump out of bed to empty my bladder or I'd pee my pants. Turning my head, I placed a soft kiss against his lips and figured that he wasn't really awake yet, so I couldn't demand a real morning kiss. Laying my head back down, I sighed and felt sleep start to take me again.

Aaaaand... there was the barging. "Roxas, Axel, dudes! Wake up!" Reno left the door open as he jumped into my camper, looming over mine and Axel's figures in the bed, tugging on the blanket the way a five year old might on Christmas morning.

"This guy totally saw me and Ax's act the first time we officially performed it for an audience in this circus a few days ago and he approached me just now, leaving me his card, yo!" Another shake of the shoulders. "Axel! Wake up you big fat lazy ass! Hey Rox."

I bit my tongue, only giving him a silent nod. The only reason he wasn't getting his ass kicked right this very instance was out of respect for Axel. It was his brother and...and nothing! I was in a relationship with Axel, not Reno and Axel and fucking hell, I wanted space for just him and me. Was that too much to ask? Well, I didn't care.

I was going to fucking ask that as soon as Reno left us the hell alone. Poking Axel's side, not very gentle like as I was very annoyed, I grunted to get his attention. "Axel, wake up."

He growled, turning over and giving me and Reno his back to stare at. "Yeah! For fuck sake! I heard. A dude, a card and now poking. Give me a minute and I'll be right with ya'll." Not. He grabbed the blanket, pulling it over his head, determined to ignore everything but his sleep.

I don't know who I was more annoyed with at the moment. My boyfriend for trying to leave me to deal with his brother, or his brother for barging in and waking me up. Not to mention that I really wanted to smack Axel and force him to deal with the nuisance. But he wouldn't.

"Excuse me, I'm gonna use the bathroom." I gritted out, hoping to just get away from these two before I painted the inside of my trailer with their blood. Yeah, not really a morning person. Slamming the bathroom door shut, I hoped that Axel would finally take the hint and wake the fuck up.

I heard them through the door. "Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel..." Reno continued on and on, probably not about to stop unless Axel actually reacted to Reno's demand of attention.

"How I shared a uterus with you for 9 months?" Axel mumbled sleepily, "I have no fucking idea. I'm surprised I didn't use the umbilical cord to choke you." My boyfriend was not happy. I could tell because I'd never heard him sound that dark when he spoke.

"Would you get over yourself?" Reno clearly didn't feel threatened. "Did you not hear what I said? Pretty blue haired dude gave me his card and will be in touch with us."

"What for?" Axel whined.

"Sheesh, you get worse each morning I wake you guys like this."

A beat of silence. "Get the fuck out of here, Reno! Do you want Roxas' murderous urges towards you to triple in size? Keep at it and I promise you they will. He'll hang ya with his tightrope first chance he gets."

"Oh fine. I'll just go bug the clowns." Reno muttered.

"Good boy."

I heard feet stomping, a muttered 'totally whipped' and then the door of my camper slammed shut, followed by a load groan coming from Axel.

Yeah, that wasn't really going to cut it for me. Finishing my business, I opened the bathroom door, noticing that Axel was still in bed, probably trying to go back to sleep and I bit my lip. No, I couldn't let this go on. Boyfriend or not, this was my home, even if it was a trailer and I had to put my foot down. I just needed him to understand that if Reno was going to continue to wake him up like that, he couldn't spend the night here. God, I felt like such a whiny bitch when I thought about it like that, but dammit. Boundaries. I needed boundaries.

"Axel?" I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to sound calm.

"Yeah?" he mumbled, rolling over so he could at least look at me.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think that this whole sleeping over thing is going to work." I said softly, trying to find the right words from my train of thought to use that wouldn't offend him about his brother.

Frowning, he sat up. "I'm getting why you are announcing this, I know it's related to Reno, but... Excuse me? Mind explaining why you're kicking me out rather than telling Reno to stay the fuck away?"

Bristling at that, I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "I shouldn't have to!" Boy, did I hate the sound of my voice and attitude right this very moment. Running a hand through my hair, I tried to just spit it out. "Okay, so he's your twin. Your brother. You've been with him since birth. So, when he comes barging in here," I waved at the door for emphasis, "I'm thinking that it's a brotherly sort of bond thing that I have no right messing with. And if I do tell him to fuck off, how does that make things better? Because then you'll end up thinking that I hate your brother and he'll end up hating me, and in the end, I'll feel like I'm the bad guy, because I don't like getting woken up in my own fucking trailer!"

"Which is your right, brotherly bond or not. Doesn't make ya a bad guy." Axel pointed out. "What I don't appreciate is that you clearly seem to believe I don't care about your comfort and opinion." His words were clipped as he tossed the blanket aside , moving to sit on the edge of the bed instead of comfortably in it.

"Ya rather not sleep with me, than talk to me about how you feel." And then he stood, hitching up his pajama bottoms and looked around the room, most likely for his clothes, and clearly all kinds of tense and angry. "Don't like it that you seem to think you can't talk to me." He muttered, letting out a frustrated growl as he couldn't seem to find his clothes.

"Hey!" I shouted, jumping up and pointing to the bed angrily. "You don't get to leave! Sit down cause I'm not done yet!" Not caring that he was still searching around for his clothes, I figured I'd botched this one pretty bad with what I'd said.

"It's not that I don't feel like I can talk to you, okay? It's because I don't always understand how you feel about your brother. It just felt like since you didn't care that he woke you up or whatever, or if you did care, you didn't do anything about it, I didn't think that I could. Even if it is my trailer." My words were rushing out now, trying to make sure I didn't chase him off, but also trying to understand just what in the hell I was thinking. "Look, I'm sorry about what I said. I wasn't really thinking about how it came out. I was just trying to not cause friction with the in-laws. Really, I'm sorry. Please don't leave."

"If I was about to leave it's because you asked me to leave." He sighed out, sitting back down on the edge of the bed, no longer looking for his clothes. "Okay, look, that's all very reasonable and I totally get why you'd think that way. But ya seriously can't just skip the conversation before coming out with a decision like that." He muttered, giving me an eye roll before letting himself fall on his back onto my bed.

"Having Reno wake me up like that isn't something I appreciate, but at the same time I've been used to him doing that since we were tiny. No matter how many times I've told him I don't like it, he still does it. So if you want him to stop doing that, you're gonna have to tell him yourself cause he's not gonna listen to me, kay?"

"And if I say something that makes him mad, what will you do? Because that's my fear right there. It's completely irrational and selfish, but I want you to always choose my side, within reason, but how can I even ask that cause it's your brother and holy shit, my head hurts." Falling onto the bed face first to hide my shame, I just decided to shut my mouth. "I feel stupid." I muttered.

I felt his hand rest on my back, slowly stroking up and down. "Your trailer, your boundaries. Now that we've talked about it, ya know that I'm just as annoyed by him barging in like that as you are, so be my guest, give him a piece of your mind. If my brother is being unreasonable you won't see me taking his side because you're trying to point that matter out to him." I felt him tug on my shirt, trying to get me to come closer to him.

"You're over-thinking the entire situation, which is actually very cute and makes me want to kiss you until you go silly." He murmured, chuckling then as I wouldn't budge from where I was lying, face still pressed into the mattress. The bed shifted and I felt him hovering over me, his mouth pressed against the back of my neck.

"Roxie... You don't have to feel stupid." He whispered, his hand slipping underneath the edge of my shirt, fingertips tracing patterns over the naked skin of my back. "Come on, love, turn around so we can make up already. It's all good. We've once again come to realize that my brother is an ass. What else is new? Now let's move on and celebrate the fact you're not kicking me out."

"I don't ever want you to leave." I mumbled, still feeling like an idiot for starting a fight over nothing in the end. What can I say, I was a world class pouter. Rolling over and wrapping my arms around him, I buried my face into the side of his neck. "I'm gonna kick Reno's ass..."

Holding me close to him, I felt his mouth form into a smile as it was pressed against the side of my face. "That's fine. But you can do that later. Right now your boyfriend needs a kiss."

Blushing, as I remembered his words about calling me his love, I refused to let go of his hug and move around to kiss him. Was he serious? "Were you serious?" I wanted to know if it was just a way of speaking.

His fingers will still tracing patterns on my back, his lips now pressing random kisses along my face. "About what?" He asked softly, rolling over onto his back and settling me on top of him. He tried gently nudging my face out of the crook of his neck, chuckling as I wouldn't move from there.

"You said...love." I mumbled, feeling my entire body flush.

"Why would I say something if I weren't serious?" He said, his fingers slipping into my pants, cupping my ass over my boxers. "Can I get my kiss now?"

Nodding, I closed my eyes, and kissed up his neck and jawline, using that to find his mouth so I could place a simple kiss on him. Opening them as I pulled back, I grinned. "There. Happy now?"

"That's all I'm getting?" He whined. "Where did the Roxas from last night go? The one that was about ready to tear my clothes off and kiss me all over..." His eyes closed, a happy smile spreading on his lips as a shiver ran over his body while he probably remembered our make out session from last night. "God, I do love your ass..." He was kneading it currently.

"Sorry, I was sort of hoping to wake you up nice and easy this morning. Umm...ah...Axel." I whined, unable to hide my reaction to him grabbing onto me. Falling forward, I gladly kissed him like I'd done last night, running my fingers over his chest and into his hair. Pushing my hips down into his, I was glad to see I wasn't the only one affected.

Shaking his head, I felt him grin against my mouth before rolling us over so I was the one beneath him now. "Honestly, love..." He whispered, using the term of endearment so softly. "I refuse to come in my pants like a fifteen year old teenager during a quick dry hump for the first time with you. Now..." His lips dragged down to my neck, one of his hands he wasn't using to keep himself balanced above me running down my stomach ever so slowly. "I'm not gonna screw, fuck or make love to you this morning. Still a gentleman. But I'm not leaving this trailer with a raging hard on again either, so pants off and don't you dare stop me from sucking that cock of yours."

I laughed, feeling my heart quicken at the idea of it. "How exactly does that help with your 'raging hard on'?" Slipping my hands down his back, I gripped his perfect ass.

He quirked an eyebrow. "You really think you're the kinda guy who receives but doesn't return? If you are, then ya seriously got me fooled."

"Oh, I suppose I've been dying to taste you for weeks now. Fine." Giving him one last hard kiss, sweeping my tongue through his mouth, I pulled back with a pop. "I'm thinking you should take off your pants now."

"Well, alright, but you're still wearing yours and I still have the ability to talk." He grinned, sitting up and pushing down his pajama bottoms, pulling his shirt off next. "You trying to get a taste of me first or do you intend for us to do this at the same time?" He licked his lips as I slowly pushed my pajama pants down, boxers along with it. "Have we had the experience talk yet? I can't seem to locate my brain right now and remember..." He murmured, eyes fixed on my dick while I kicked off my pants.

Laying back on the bed, blushing as I was literally sprawled out completely naked now, I shook my head. "Well, what do you mean by experience? You said you'd been with...others before."

His hands came to rest on my thighs, stroking them softly. "I have. You've never told me about you though." He murmured, moving off the bed for a moment to strip his boxers down, now completely naked as well while he crawled back onto the bed, hovering above me. "No details... I'd be jealous." His lips rested onto my mouth. "I just want to make sure you've been with someone before." His hand slid up my side slowly, taking his time to get to know my body.

"Y-yes." I mumbled, completely entranced by his skin and the warmth that I felt emanating from it. "I'm not a virgin or anything." With all the travel that I did, I'd never had a steady boyfriend. Just a few one night stands, not really something that I wanted to share with my actual boyfriend laying over me. My stomach was tight with desire and my cock was questioning my brain, trying to understand why it wasn't going to get sex. Running my fingers up his sides lightly, I tried to remind myself that we were waiting because we hadn't known each other very long.

His hand was touching me everywhere, as if trying to remember every little bit of me. "You have the cutest belly..." He chuckled at his rather odd compliment, looking down our bodies, his palm resting on my stomach. "And your hips? Imma love holding onto those..." He murmured meaningfully, dipping his head down to place a kiss on my chest. "So are we doing this one by one, or are you very eager to suck my cock?" I felt him grin against my skin, lips dragging over it, numerous kisses covering me. Sometimes he said the nicest things, other times the cutest and then occasionally, like now, the crudest.

I tried to think about it, but my skin was burning where his lips were touching it. "Lay back and I'll get you first." I murmured as my hands pushed up on his chest, knowing that if he gave it to me first, I'd just want to roll over and go back to sleep.

Grinning, he pushed me back down onto my back. "Sure you do. But I want the first taste as well. Since we're part of a circus, I'm sure seeing each other upside down won't be that much of a shock." He kissed my lips softly and then maneuvered himself around so we were both lying on our sides, facing each other, or sort of anyway as his dick was staring me straight in the face now. I felt his hand grip my ass, his lips pressing against my hip, kissing, nipping and licking his way down to my own cock.

Taking a deep breath, I felt a little nervous as I'd never really been one to give head, and I was unsure I could satisfy him with my technique. Let's just hope that he didn't have much experience at receiving. Giving his leg a small nibble, I tried very hard not to become lost in the sensations of his mouth right fucking there.

I moved my hand over his hip to grip the base of his cock, it was too big to fit completely in my mouth and I figured this would help me control him while pumping. Finally, I stared at it and slowly and gently wrapped my lips around the head, humming to give him a small vibration. Licking the underside of it, knowing that it was super sensitive, I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the flavor of Axel.

His fingers dug into the skin of my ass, mouth wrapping around my length and he moaned around it, sucking and swallowing, pressing with his hand on my butt so he could take me deeper into his throat. Slipping it almost all the way out, he whirled his tongue around the head, his steady breath warm against my skin. Like myself, he occasionally was a bit sloppy in his movements, most likely having problems concentrating on working me while being worked. It was hard, but giving and receiving at the same time was a whole new thrill in itself.

"Whatever you're doing, don't stop that..." He breathed, his other hand closing around the base of my dick, squeezing and rubbing before his lips closed around the head again.

That was easy enough to comply with, as my mind was complete and utter mush now and the only thing I could do was grip and pump the base as I sucked on the head, tongued his slit and suckled on the underside of it. As he mimicked my movement, I gasped and released his dick to let out a quiet moan.

"Fuck, Axel...wait...gonna come..." We hadn't discussed the whole, 'spit or swallow' idea and as my mind panicked for a split second, I tightened my grip on him, groaning out as my orgasm crashed over me.

He held onto my hip, keeping me steady as he sucked harder, swallowing every last drop that shot out of me and I barely had time to come down from the awesome high when the heavy vibration of his loud moan around my length had me spasm as my dick was now sensitive, but that wasn't really something to focus on as Axel was coming himself. His hips jerked forward once, and then he tried to move away, body trembling before stiffened and another moan left him.

I wouldn't let him. No way in hell was he going to deny me this pleasure. Still holding onto his dick, I automatically wrapped my lips around him again to return the favor, barely quick enough to catch his come as it hit my tongue and I gladly swallowed everything he had to offer, panting as I was still sensitive myself.

"Yeah..." I sighed, completely spent and wiping my mouth against his leg. "That was not something I get to enjoy every day..." I whispered.

Gulping, he then nodded, rolling over onto his back, looking completely spent. "Your dick is awesome." He returned, lifting a hand up in the air suddenly. "I call dibs!" Huh? Lolling his head to the side to look at me, he grinned. "Dibs on not having to move. I call it." Outstretching somewhat limp looking arms in my direction, he murmured, "Come here."

I made a small effort to kick out softly at his hands with my foot, chuckling as he just pushed them back, beckoning me again. "Ugh,...fine!" I moaned and dragged my sorry and tired ass up his body, to hang limply over his chest. We would definitely need a shower after this. "You suck." I mumbled, placing a soft kiss against his heart.

"Yes... I... do..." He waggled his eyebrows, hooking his arms underneath my armpits to pull me up his body, kissing my lips. "As do you." He chuckled, holding me close to him and sighing contently as I was settled on top of his naked body. "So what's next, Roxie?" A soft whisper as he pushed the hair out of my face. "I want to tell you how deeply I feel for you, but we've known each other only so shortly... ya know?" He sounded somewhat unsure, which was strange, cause he rarely did. "But I gotta say I'm sorta certain I can't picture myself in this circus without being with you."

Smiling and letting the warmth of his words wash over me, I sighed and relaxed, completely content in this one moment. "I'm just so happy that you're here with me. Nothing else really matters." Lifting my head up, I reached my hand to cup his jaw, staring into the haunting green eyes. "Axel, We don't have to plan anything now. We're together and if that means that you wanted to have sex right now, then I'd be perfectly happy to do it. Because I-"

Stuttering for a moment, I gulped and bit back the panic at saying those words to him. It felt scary right now, almost like I could jinx how perfect everything was. Better hold back just a little bit. "feel so very strongly for you." Covering his lips for a moment, I shook my head. "Don't say those words just yet. I'm afraid they'll jinx us or something."

Giving me a soft smile, he nodded against my lips. "Anything, love, know I feel that way though." Releasing his mouth, I smiled and nodded before dropping my head against his shoulder and letting my exhaustion have its way. Things were going to be okay between us. He was here and he wasn't going anywhere.

* * *

><p><strong>Axel - Epilogue: A couple of months later<strong>

Stefan always made sure there were barely any waiting periods between acts when the circus performed for an audience. So, Roxas's tightrope act was right before mine and Reno's knife throwing act which was then instantly followed by mine and Roxas's act where Reno accompanied us with his violin.

Roxas and I had both realized that the fascination we'd both felt when watching each other do our acts, was no replaced by the fear a lover felt when their counterpart put themselves at risk. Roxas didn't want me in his line of sight when he was walking the tightrope because apparently my big eyes full of worry for him distracted him.

While during my act? It's not like I could really concentrate on the audience much as I was so focused on dodging the knives my twin launched my way, but Roxas always whispered a 'freaking terrifying' the moment he climbed up onto my shoulders after the knife throwing act ended. The werewolf mask I wore even during my act with Roxas. I thought it was a good call on Stefan's part as they could see the more scary side of the animal during its knife battle with the zombie, but since it was followed up with the werewolf being so kind to the tightrope walker? Kids in the audience weren't as frightened of me anymore.

Grabbing onto Roxas's ankles, I helped him push himself up into the air off my shoulders, hearing the 'ooh's' and 'aah's' in the audience as he rolled over before letting himself drop into my arms bridal style. Curling himself up into a ball, I held him close as I let myself sink down to the floor, rolling onto my back backwards with Roxas in my arms.

That one had been tricky to get right, but weeks of relentless practice had gotten us there, so when my feet hit the ground again and I straightened, Roxas did too. We had worked our act so that I never actually set Rox down onto the ground in the simple way. Also, it was sort of a follow up on his tightrope act.

We made sure his feet didn't connect to the ground very long and I actually did the occasional dance step while he flipped over in the air to do a follow up on my act with Reno. Which, my twin was circling us with the violin, setting the pace of our lifts and throws. It had been nerve wracking the first couple of times we'd done this act in public, but now it had become routine.

Wrapping my arms around his waist, he pushed off his feet, turning over as he went so he ended up sitting on my shoulder, giving my werewolf mask a pat on the cheek, which kids always seemed to find funny.

All three of us bowed then, or well, Reno and Roxas did anyways, I just curtsied since I couldn't really bow with Roxas on my shoulders. The audience clapped for us and then Stefan's voice said something about the beast being tamable after all, which was our cue to get off the stage to make place for the acts that followed ours. Passing the red curtain that led to the backstage, Reno walked off while I crouched down so Roxas could get off my shoulders, pulling the werewolf mask off my head as he went.

"It's really hot to breath under that thing." I muttered, rubbing my face and giving my sweet blond a smile.

He grimaced as he nodded, holding the mask with a thumb and forefinger out and away from him. "Yeah, and it's sort of creepy to look at it and knowing that you're behind it. I really don't like it. I'm hoping that when we have a more solid base, we can just change it to make-up of some kind and not a mask." Turning his blue eyes on me, he gave me a soft smile, resting his hand on my forearm.

"You feelin' okay? No sprains or anything?" He always asked me, still reassuring himself that he was standing correctly on me and not bruising me.

Pulling him to me, I pushed his hair out of his face, kissing his lips softly. "Perfect. How about you? I wanted to destroy that kid in the audience with my fake werewolf teeth. The one that tried to hang onto the rope while you were on it." I growled at the memory of it. The nice thing about the circus is that the stage was round, so the audience could see from all angles, and of course, it was close by, so the people felt less disconnected from the performers. It also meant the occasional jackass entering the circus to watch was at close proximity though.

He gave a annoyed noise and nodded, returning the kiss. "I thought about 'accidentally' falling on him to help him learn a lesson." Giving me a big smile, he wrapped his arm around my waist, tucking himself into my side. "We have tomorrow off, don't we? Tell me we do because I'm in serious need of relaxation."

I nodded, stroking his cheek with my thumb. "Yeah. Tonight was the last big show of the week, tomorrow is pony rides and puppet theatre with some juggling and fire breathing acts." I assured. "But we're moving on to Hollow Bastion in two days." We were in Traverse Town now.

Like Twilight Town, we'd thought this place wouldn't be too excited about a circus coming to town, reserved and secluded it had seemed, but there were more people in the audience than we'd hoped for. Hollow Bastion was a city though, so bigger audience and more shows. He groaned as he remembered, no doubt annoyed as he'd actually be up on a tight wire when we got to Hollow Bastion, high enough to need a net and everything. It wasn't harder, just not as fun as the slackwire he usually used for smaller areas.

Going slack against me suddenly, his arms came around my neck and he whined, "Axel, I don't wanna walk to the trailer. Carry me?" Pouting, he gave me his best puppy dog eyes.

I grinned, kissing the tip of his nose before giving him my hands, helping him back up onto my shoulders once he'd grabbed a hold of them. Legs dangling down my front and his arms too, I felt him bend forward, giving me a kiss when I tilted my head back. Reaching behind him, I rubbed his back softly, about to walk off to our trailer, but I halted in my steps, raising an eyebrow as my eyes landed on my twin.

He was talking to a guy with long blue hair, the one that had approached Reno and myself a couple of months back, trying to buy us out of the circus and put us on television. It had been a great offer, truly, but I'd refused, the circus having become my home and of course, Roxas was here, and I wasn't going anywhere without him. Reno had told me about the offer, not saying he'd wanted to accept it, and he hadn't because when I'd told him I wasn't going to leave this place, he hadn't made me try and explain myself as to why, simply nodded and told me he'd take care of the 'blue haired dude that offered him his card'. And he had. But the blue haired dude named Saix still came around regularly. And while at first I'd thought he'd been relentless on having us join the television show, I now realized it's not the act Saix was interested in, it was my brother.

"Hey, isn't that...what's his name?" Roxas murmured and pointed at them.

I nodded, frowning. "Yeah. Saix. I'm beginning to think that-" My eyes widened as Reno settled a hand on Saix's hip, pulling him closer, resting his forehead against the blue-haired man, a soft smile playing on my twin's lips. "Kay, not beginning, it's certain now. Saix ain't here for the knife throwing act anymore."

"Oh my god! Axel! He's...he's kissing him!" Roxas gasped, his pointing finger now waving frantically at the couple.

My jaw dropped open, and I nudged Roxas' arm out of the way as it was blocking my view. "Well shit." Was all that came out as Reno framed Saix's face in a gentle manner, his gestures and touches so caring and... sweet. And he'd never smiled the way he did at Saix to anybody else before. Shaking my head out of my staring, I chuckled as Roxas bounced on my shoulders, clearly having a hard time grasping what we were seeing.

"Come on, ya silly monkey, let's go and not break the moment they seem to be sharing." Reno was sharing a moment with someone... Of all things... Bewildered, I held onto Rox's thighs as I made my way out of the tent and into the open air, breathing in deeply before setting of in direction of our trailer. We'd moved my stuff into his camper a while ago, figuring it was stupid for me to keep my camper when I lived in Roxas' anyways.

"I feel like any moment I'm going to see pigs flying." He chuckled, running fingers through my hair. "Reno is in love...it's kinda sickeningly adorable. I suppose I shouldn't tease him about it..."

I rolled my eyes. "Liar. You totally will." He was gonna, I knew it. It was their favorite shared hobby. 'Who could piss the other off fastest?'

"I'm happy. I won't have to do the awkward, 'I'm so sorry my twin is an ass. No, you won't be the love of his life. Your relationship won't last longer than the one night stand that occurred yesterday.' anymore." Reaching out, I opened the door to our trailer, ducking low enough so Roxas could pass through the opening while still on my shoulders.

"Well, he hasn't been too bad lately. I mean, it seems like you being in a steady relationship maybe woke him up a little?" He kissed the top of my head.

Smiling, I grasped his arms, guiding him off my shoulders and settling him on the bed. "Could be that. Or maybe Saix is just that good and we should give him all the credit." I chuckled as Rox groaned in pleasure at the feel of the mattress beneath his body. "You worked your ass off this week." I murmured, leaning over him to kiss his him quickly.

Circling his arms around my neck quickly, he yanked my shoulders down so I was laying on him now. Murmuring against my lips, he said quietly, "You should really reward me. It feels like I haven't slept with you in a week." Pushing me back a few inches he glared at me playfully. "Maybe cause you haven't? And I know, blah, blah, blah, sex makes it harder to perform." Rolling his eyes, and putting on a powerful pout, he playfully asked, "Don't you wanna have sex with me?"

Propping myself up onto my elbows, I narrowed my eyes on him. "That's not fair, love. Last time we had sex before a performance, I nearly got stabbed by Reno because I was still coming down from the orgasm high. It's like alcohol, makes my reflexes slower." Giving him a smirk, I threaded my fingers through his hair, managing to resist the pout for just a tad longer.

"Granted, that was literally right before the act, but still... We're tired after a show enough as it is, add sex on top of it and then the day after for another show... What if ya slip, huh? You gonna stand back up and tell the audience, 'Sorry 'bout that, my boyfriend pounded me so hard last night, that in combination with shows from days prior are making my legs sorta wobbly'?"

"They'd totally understand." He chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. "If they could just see you without the mask on, they'd _totally _understand." Leaning up to kiss me gently, humming in pleasure, his tongue gently licked my bottom lip sucking it into his mouth and nibbling on it. Releasing me with a smirk, he dropped back down to the bed. "So...whatcha wanna do now?"

No. I wasn't done yet. "Or that time after our third show? We were both so exhausted yet we tried having sex anyway? We fell asleep during foreplay, Rox. I woke up with my hand around your dick." I laughed at the memory. "While that's sorta awesome in its own way, we're only twenty years old, that shit isn't supposed to happen." Okay. Now I was done preaching. Kissing him deeply, I smiled against his mouth as he moaned when he realized I was totally up for a round of amazing sex.

Opening his legs, so that I easily fell between them, he wrapped them around my waist and hooked his ankles together behind my back. His hands were still on my shoulders, but they quickly moved, one to the back of my head to thread in my hair and grip a handful gently, the other settling on my back digging his fingernails into me. He was pushing his hips up against mine, silently telling me to hurry the hell up and fuck him already.

"Lube..." I breathed, pressing my groin against his continuously, reaching out with my hand so he could place the bottle of lube in my palm after having gotten it off the night stand.

Popping the lid, I let my lips slide down his chin and attach on his neck, sucking and nipping as I slicked up my hand. Rox was undoing his pants and then mine, pushing his off completely while only pushing mine far enough down so my cock was freed.

One week without one single handjob or blowjob or fuck... We knew having sex played on our performance skill so we were good boys and held ourselves back, but once a show week was over, it was hard to do the slow and loving type of sex... We needed it quick and rough instantly and then we could do it slow and soft sometime later. Point being, I was glad he wasn't bothering much with our clothes. Sucking onto his neck and creating a beautiful hickey, I slipped my hand down between his legs, our dicks still bumping into each other as I pressed one finger into him.

"Axel..." He panted, always preferring to moan my name, and I grinned as his fingernails slowly raked up my back. Pushing against my finger, and shivering as my lips nibbled on his neck, he was already panting and out of breath. "More..."

The way he reacted to my touch, it drove me completely mad. I'd never get enough of him ever. Kneeling above him, I kissed his lips softly, taking my time and paying referent attention to his mouth as I pressed two fingers into him, moaning as his body trembled beneath mine.

"Gods, I love you..." Admitting we were attracted to each other had taken a long while, but the moment it had been out there, our relationship had picked up fast. It had worried both of us for a moment, but there had been no reason to be. Things had gone great and, well, they still were.

"Love...you...more." He panted out, and I found it rather cute that he always said that back, even when we were having sex. He kissed me harder, forcing my mouth to stay attached to his as his grip in my hair basically controlled my head at this point.

I couldn't really concentrate, completely drowned away in the feel of him beneath me and his moans and pants mixing with mine. Adding the third finger happened not long after and we continued kissing feverishly as I stretched him until he was ready for me. Both sticky with sweat now, he let out an impatient noise, breaking away from the kiss as he planted his heels into the mattress, pushing his body up so my fingers slipped out.

Chuckling, I kissed his chest softly while coating my dick with a generous amount of lube, "Greedy much?" He tugged on my hair for that comment and I then simply pressed the head of my cock into him in response to the tug, wanting to give him a smug smile, but- "Oh fuck, how's it get better every time?" I moaned out, laying my body down on top of his.

"I need you, Axel." He gasped out, throwing his head back as I pushed into him, moaning and holding tightly to me. Settling inside of him, I held still, giving him a moment to adjust. "Okay, okay. I'm good, please Axel." Moving his head, he caught my lips in a heavy kiss, wiggling his body around, egging me on.

Pushing in and then out at a very slow pace, I moaned, breaking away from the kiss. "Oh... I don't know, love..." I taunted somewhat breathlessly. "Maybe you should do the work for once, huh?" Grinning, I rolled us over, making sure I didn't slip out of him as he settled into a sitting position on top of me. Grasping his hips, I let out a groan of pleasure at the sight of him right there, licking my lips as I slipped one hand over his stomach, my fingers wrap around his dick.

"Oh, fuck," Roxas matched his moan to mine, resting a hand on my chest as he shifted his legs to settle on the bed next to my hips. His other hand wrapped around mine as I stroked his cock. Moving slowly up and down, finding the best angle for his pleasure, he settled for into leaning slightly forward and finally picking up the pace until he was slamming down onto me every time. Letting go of my hand, he put both palms on my chest, eyes closing, his head thrown back in pleasure.

I propped myself up onto my elbow, murmuring a soft, 'Hey' to get his attention and when I got it, I pressed my lips to his, the kiss sloppy at first and then we just let our mouths press together, not really moving them, but enjoying the feel nonetheless. Squeezing the head of his dick and letting my thumb stroke over the slit, I caught the low long moan that left him and my pants became somewhat erratic as his ass tightened around me.

"Rox, fuck, I'm-" Jerking my hips up to meet his slams down, my entire body shuddered as the orgasm pulled out of me when his ass clenched around me again.

With a few more mind numbing bounces, Roxas groaned out my name and I felt him release onto my hand and stomach. Not moving as he came down from the high of orgasm, a minute later he slumped forward, and I removed my hand from his now soft dick to hold him against me, both of us panting and smiling.

"Sex with you is the best thing in the world," He mumbled, still a little silly from our sex.

"Right? I totally rock your world and stuff," I chuckled as he bit onto my shoulder in retaliation, stroking his hair as I rolled us over so I was on top again so I could slowly pull out of him. "Wipes?" Not like I needed to ask, he'd already grabbed them. Smiling, I cleaned us both up before laying back down on him.

"You are ridiculous," He laughed, but hugged me close anyways, "I love you and if you don't let me sleep for at least ten hours, I'll kick your ass." Closing his eyes, his arms flopped to the bed, and he started fake snoring.

Snorting, I rolled over onto my back and beside him, managing to pull the blanket over us. "Cause ya think I'll need less than ten? Also, say I do wake up before you, you think I'll wake you? You talk too much in the mornings." There was a falter in the fake snore, and I squawked in amused surprise as he poked me in my side.

"You love it. If I remember correctly, the one morning I got up and went to get coffee silently so I wouldn't wake you up, you sulked for almost an hour before finally spitting out what you were so pissed about." Snuggling into my side, kissing whatever parts of my skin he could get his mouth to, he finally settled down. "At least I don't snore like you do." He mumbled.

He was jostled when I chuckled at that. "Right back at ya then, I remember you waking me up one night, demanding what was wrong with me since apparently I hadn't been snoring." Stroking his hair, I kissed his forehead, yawning then while holding him close. "Tomorrow Imma make us some pancakes."

"Blueberry, please."

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><p><strong>THE END<strong>

**A/N: If you liked this Axel and Roxas fic of ours, please check out our profile for other stories about them and many other popular pairings. (shameless plugging complete)**


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